Expectations for season 2023/2024

At the moment unless you’re fecking City sitting on a perfect squad with the best manager, I don’t think any team can say honestly say they’re definitely finishing Top 4. Only way they’re not in the Top 4 next season is if someone’s handed them a significant point deduction for their 115.

It’s really hard to formulate a valid expectation at this point but I’m hoping we’ll be vying for Top 4 and making decent progress in cup competitions. Getting out the CL group would be a baseline for example but who knows if we get slammed with a group of death.
 
Chairman Steve said:
It’s really hard to formulate a valid expectation at this point but I’m hoping we’ll be vying for Top 4 and making decent progress in cup competitions. Getting out the CL group would be a baseline for example but who knows if we get slammed with a group of death.
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We’re in pot 2. Current confirmed pot 3 teams are Salzburg, Lazio, Milan, Shakhtar, Red Star. Not sure any of them bar maybe Milan could form a group of death along with a pot 1 team.
 
Being totally honest, I have none so far.
We have no improved enough to challenge for the PL, not good enough for the CL.
New keeper and Mount is staps in the right direction.
We need a goal scorer.
I see another season of fighting for top 6
 
a lot of Man Utd fans have a crush on the coach and so have low expectations.

Our average position over the past 5 years is 4th, we spent 230m last summer and are spending again this summer. 81 points in the league should be the bare minimum. I'd consider the league season to be a failure if we don't manage at least that.
 
Random question.

Am I correct in saying that we can finish 5th this season and qualify for the Champions League because two leagues with the highest coefficient get an extra place?
 
MancunianAngels said:
Random question.

Am I correct in saying that we can finish 5th this season and qualify for the Champions League because two leagues with the highest coefficient get an extra place?
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Imagine if the scousers finish 6th and win the EL. There could be 6 premier league teams in the CL the following season.
 
If the window were to close tomorrow I would say its going to be another tilt at trying to get into the Champions League places, which to be brutally honest, this is because the bar has been set lower against the backdrop of corporate greed.
 
At least 2nd place, if we get a decent striker. EtH is a fantastic manager. Now that he has had more time with the players (without the ridiculously-timed World Cup disrupting his rebuilding process), I am really excited at what he can accomplish.
 
Appletonred said:
If the window were to close tomorrow I would say its going to be another tilt at trying to get into the Champions League places, which to be brutally honest, this is because the bar has been set lower against the backdrop of corporate greed.
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As I said above, we can finish 5th this season and still qualify for the Champions League. All of this negativity is a bit strange.

The squad looks marginally stronger than last season and out of the teams that finished below us, nobody has really strengthened to the point where you'd say they're definite contenders to finish above us yet.
 
We need more goals from midfield. Not gonna happen with fred anthony and sancho. We also do not have a clear cut 9, a backup for bruno. So top 3.
 
Top 2 nailed on to be City and Arsenal.

Quite hard to predict between Liverpool/Chelsea/Utd/Newcastle who’ll end up where.

A tad annoying we haven’t heavily invested in the squad, had a good season could have built on it by going balls to the walls. Mount, Onana and Rasmus is a decent window but hardly something that’ll push us onto that next level. Still the top four dogfight rather than getting close to the leaders.
 
Suv666 said:
Top 2 nailed on to be City and Arsenal.

Quite hard to predict between Liverpool/Chelsea/Utd/Newcastle who’ll end up where.

A tad annoying we haven’t heavily invested in the squad, had a good season could have built on it by going balls to the walls. Mount, Onana and Rasmus is a decent window but hardly something that’ll push us onto that next level. Still the top four dogfight rather than getting close to the leaders.
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I think it's far from nailed on Arsenal will be top 2. There's a big chance they massively overactive last season. Liverpool are a big unknown, hope they are on way down but Klopp is a top class manager.
 
4th or 5th place
While the Glazers are in charge, we shall continue to target 4th place.
 
United need to have a good start and also gain points away from home. Both which we didn't do last season and I hope we start well and for once win at city and Liverpool.

I would say due to the competition for top 4, we still will be fighting for top4.

We don't currently have an killer instinct to win games and go for the title.
 
3rd or 4th place realistically, but I predict we over perform again. Going for 2nd place finish.
 
For me,
Title.
FA Cup.
Beat Liverpool twice.
Good run in Champions league.

Would accept top 3/4. Challenge for a cup. Good run in CL and beating Liverpool once and drawing at Anfield.
 
League: Top four required, within 5-10 points of the winner (City probably) would be decent. At least being mathematically in the title race until the tail end of the season.

CL: Probably reaching the quarters, but of course it depends a lot on draws.

FA Cup: A win, but again it depends on draw luck.

League Cup: Hopefully some easy draws to get youngsters/fringe players some good outings. If we reach semis we can field a stronger team and hopefully snatch another trophy.
 
Progress, just progress. More consistency, put up a proper challenge at Anfield, City, Arsenal. A bit more control, a clearer plan going forward. We'll need to finish top 4 but no imperatives beyond that. We're not ready to be winning titles, Champions league.
 
We have the most astronomical salaries in all of prem. Which is fine, I don't mind rewarding people for excellence. What I do mind is paying our players north of $300K/week regardless of their actual performance.

This is dumb. Salaries above $200K should be made highly performance-based. Rashy is awesome but he should only get top salary if he keeps scoring. Same for Sancho etc. Base salary should be capped at $150-200K

Even in corporate world, highly paid individuals are always getting bulk of their comp in performance-based way. Why do we pay players enormous sums whether they deliver or not? People got used to coming to United to cash out. And that has been a huge problem.

Granted, Ten Hag pays more attention to player mentality but some of it should also be rules-based and not rely on getting lucky with mentality

This will also help with selling players once their performance declines. Case in point - we currently struggle to sell Maguire because nobody will pay him the stupid money we do. His compensation should have automatically declined once he can't even get into the team
 
At the moment, none. Need to see who else we bring in.

While we haven't basically stood still, we haven't made any major improvements yet. We still lack the single most important factor in football and unless it's sorted properly, we will be in for another season of what ifs.
 
JagUTD said:
At the moment, none. Need to see who else we bring in.

While we haven't basically stood still, we haven't made any major improvements yet. We still lack the single most important factor in football and unless it's sorted properly, we will be in for another season of what ifs.
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Agree and there seems zero chance of sorting it completely until January. Even if we bring Hojlund now, he is a developmental player. There is no way he can play every game as our main #9. I hope Ten Hag won't even try that.

The reality is we always needed two strikers, but we were never getting two under Glazers.

I just hope they feck off by January and big oil money comes in so we can buy somebody amazing in January
 
I could see us challenging for the title if we have more internal development and another very good first XI player is brought in.

I don't think City will run away with the title. They're likely a weakened squad and winning 4 league titles in a row is extremely difficult. They could decline a bit.

I think a minimal improvement has to be progression in performances away from home + vs the best teams and scoring way more league goals.
 
We have to be challenging for the title in my opinion, that means we have to get 80 points or more. I think winning the league is still off, but putting pressure on the top 2 should be in reach. I'd like us to score more goals, have a plus 30 goal difference and control games from start to finish. We should be sweeping lower ranked teams away, a couple of thrashing would be nice. I also want to see ETH implement his style, last year he had to adjust because of the players we had. HAG likes to overload the attack by having 3 at the back, a DM for cover and 6 playing and pressing at the top. We have seen a bit of this in pre season, Onana is key to this as he acts as a 4th ball playing defender.

In regards to cups, knockout stages of CL is good, hope the quarters. Winning the FA Cup or League Cup again should be a high priority.

We probably need a striker to do the above, Hojlund is not enough. I think Hojlund and Greenwood is enough.
 
Overall, another season of showing some progress in the quality of our football and transitions.

Would love to see us progress into the 2nd stage of the CL but in reality I'm expecting us to get a tough starting group.

In the PL, City and Arsenal should dominate again. For the rest, Liverpool and Chelsea must be better than last season; Aston Villa are buying well this summer so expect them to continue their improvement; Brighton will likely continue punching above their weight; Newcastle should also maintain their progress. Spurs will do another Spurs - likely start off well with the new manager then fade away. Given all that I'm expecting us to finish in the top 4 and have a decent run in at least one of the domestic cups.
 
A few things I'd be looking out for:

1. No more humiliating defeats (the 5 or more goal ones). Especially against our biggest rivals. Can't be conceding more than 4 goals like we did to both Liverpool and Man City last season.

2. 80 PL goals - big ask, but our XG should be close to 80 regardless of the number of goals we score.

3. Playing proactively against the big teams. We got dominated home and away by all 3 of Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City (we had less than 30% possession in all of those home games IIRC).

I don't see why any of those aren't achievable, now that we've allegedly got rid of the biggest culprit for those failures last season (DDG).

I know we haven't got a striker yet, but chance creation should be better now with Mount and Onana. Now that Antony's had a season here as well - ETH needs to start cashing in that £80m we spent on him last summer.

If we do all of those things - we'd have to be really unlucky to miss out on top 4, and it should be an enjoyable/fun season to follow.
 
Skills said:
A few things I'd be looking out for:

1. No more humiliating defeats (the 5 or more goal ones). Especially against our biggest rivals. Can't be conceding more than 4 goals like we did to both Liverpool and Man City last season.

2. 80 PL goals - big ask, but our XG should be close to 80 regardless of the number of goals we score.

3. Playing proactively against the big teams. We got dominated home and away by all 3 of Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City (we had less than 30% possession in all of those home games IIRC).

I don't see why any of those aren't achievable, now that we've allegedly got rid of the biggest culprit for those failures last season (DDG).

I know we haven't got a striker yet, but chance creation should be better now with Mount and Onana. Now that Antony's had a season here as well - ETH needs to start cashing in that £80m we spent on him last summer.

If we do all of those things - we'd have to be really unlucky to miss out on top 4, and it should be an enjoyable/fun season to follow.
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First point: agree, this is a mental problem mostly. We need to stay composed when we get behind instead of trying to force a come back while abandoning our tasks.

Second: I don’t see it this season, unless our new striker has a great season.

On your third point: Ten Hag is not going to try to ‘dominate’ against Arsenal/City/Liverpool next season.

Why not? Possession stats don’t matter, chances created does. If we can bypass the press with one ball, that is what will happen.

Specifically if a team presses us high and playing one versus one against our forward line, we will go long.

Take the friendly against Arsenal, both goals came from bypassing their press with a long ball.

Unless top teams stop pressing us high (they might) Ten Hag will take advantage of it next season.

All the talk of us playing a different system next year can go in the bin.
 
Hard to say. It highly depends on who else we sign before this transfer window ends, if we manage to get Kane and Amrabat for depth the title isn't a faraway dream. But realistically I think a comfortable top four finish and going all the way in one of the cup competitions (fingers crossed the FA Cup this time around) with plenty of goals scored, along with beating Liverpool home and away, would constitute as a successful season.
 
Not particularly high expectations, it has been a fairly underwhelming window so far to be perfectly honest, Onana might be surprised by the intensity of the EPL compared to such a sedate league in Serie A, Mount is inconsistent, and the team is crying out for a world class striker, moreover, Ten Hag trialling Sancho in central attack the other night says to me that he might not be getting one.
 
We don't have enough goals in this team.
I don't think Rashford will replicate his form from last season.
I expect Antony and Sancho to still not be very good.
Never watched the Atalanta striker we're linked with so can't comment about him...

And we're still an injury/red card for Casemiro away from having no adequate midfield options in the #6 role.

I expect Liverpool to improve significantly. Chelsea less so.

wouldn't be surprised to see us fighting for 4th/5th,

with City, Arsenal, Newcastle/Liverpool completing the first 3 or 4 spots.

I don't know how people expect us to challenge for the title.
There's hardly any chance of that.

For this to happen players like Antony, Sancho, Martial (should he stay...), Mct, Fred (ditto) should put out very good performances almost on a weekly basis, whenever they are played.

From what we've seen of this United team under ETH, with all its strengths and weaknesses,
do people think we can win- say- 27 games out of our 38 games in the PL? which brings us to 81 points, and then you add some draws and get to almost 90 points?

Has this team made you believe that it can win about 70% of its league games?

I find it so fecking hard to believe... and there's every chance that at least one of our rivals will do just that.
Easy to bet it's gonna be City. I'd like to think that they can't just keep getting ~90 points a season until the end of time. cnuts.
 
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I'd like us to be in the conversation as late as possible. Even if we fall away. Away form has to improve. Man city haven't improved their squad (yet) so the gap hasn't, or shouldn't, increase.

Top 2 should be the aim. Later rounds of CL,
 
Top 4 is the minimum
At least some kind of a title challenge
Decent run in the UCL
 
To win consistently. To play better as a unit than we did last season. To score more goals than last season. And finally to hold strong and keep things together when we go through a little wobble during the season.

I expect us to win the fecking league this season and that's where we are as a squad. Our squad has massively upgraded from last year and we can be that little bit better.

That league is ours.
 
It’s weird. I feel our signings are all a step up yet I don’t particularly think we’ll finish higher because everyone else has done a good job with their signings :confused:
 
I still think second place is up for grabs and you never know with a couple of good runs we could keep the gap close at the top, but realistically my expectations are much lower, I think we'll be up and down in the top 6 for the first portion of the season before settling into a fight for 3rd to 5th again. We need a decent, reliable no. 9 to come in, and then no. 9 has to be more than just effective over the course of the season. We need more goals from midfield - so Bruno, Casemeiro and Mount really need to contribute. I don't bother thinking about Rashford's contributions, he'll either be good or he'll be crap, game to game, I've lost faith in him being consistent at a high level over the course of a long season.

So I think,

Premier League - 3rd
Champions League - Out in the quarter finals if we get a decent group and take some momentum into the R16 and get a good draw
FA Cup - Quarter Final
League Cup - Semi-Final (don't think we'll win it again)

Not sure if that's a good season or not - kinda feels like we're just stagnating right now

But its a new season, so there's always hope!
 
PL is becoming super competitive.

My expectation is that I hope for top 4 and that's it. QF of CL and a good cup run would be good too.

Disregarding hard targets, I expect to see significant improvements in pressing and counter pressing. Forward play must also improve, especially in away games.
 
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