Expectations for the season

Redstain said:
6th-8th. I predicted 6th before the season started. The transfer window hasn't improved the quality of the first team enough. Didn't predict the performances being so bad however. In many ways this team and manager are going backwards. They need to lock in but by way of assessing the players body language I reckon they are either losing confidence in ETH or something has happened behind closed doors.
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I noticed this too, particularly in Rashford. It's really worrying, beginning of the end for ETH.
 
6th place, no domestic cups and we will be back in Europa after CL group stage. We won’t win that either.
 
We'll get 5th, which I understand should secure Champions League football in the reformatted competition next season.

The Glazers get away with it again and it looks like we've achieved something. Pathetic!
 
I’d take finishing where we are now if we finally change hands ownership wise. We are a complete mess with discipline and off field issues once again. I’m pretty happy to be honest there’s a consequence to this so until we can get a grip of these issues we have no place at the top table.
 
I'm very much past caring about top 4 rubbish now. Like many/most of you, I just want to see some consistent progress from the continuous mess. Qualifying for the Euro cup does nothing for us anyway. Transfer policy is as if we finished where Chelsea finished last season. Who wants to come to us these days? I wouldn't unless I was a fan. It's currently a graveyard for managers and players. As defensively naive without the ball as it gets, week in week out and pretty much since Feb or certainly more obvious since Feb. All pretty tiring now.
 
100% faith in EtH to come good. It took some time at Ajax to play his style of football.

Let's not forget he needs to fit some new players in his first eleven.

I must say the level of Casemiro in the first games disappointed me.

The discipline issues in the squad is no surprise. First season everyone will follow the manager, but if you don't like what he's doing, you can't keep up. So in season 2 your true character will come up. Look at Sancho for example, he's the first to exit because he doesn't fit the standards demanded bij EtH. So the cleanup goes on and on this season.
 
Top 4 will be a massive challenge this season as you stated. There is a lot of pressure on Hojlund up front, and when he's unavailable for whatever reason were back to Martial or Rashford up too which doesn't fill me with confidence. Martinez and Casemiro who were arguably two of our better players last season have started horrendously this one.

Not expecting us to go far in the CL. Decent run in the Fa Cup hopefully, luck of the draw pending of course. Carabao cup - couldn't care less.
 
I just wish we would be a half decent team that wouldn’t be embarrassed every second game. Gone are the days where United fans even thought of a title challenge but most people now would happily take a team that finished with 70-75 points. Just stop being an embarrassment.
 
I think top four is going to be impossible. We still don’t look like scoring but now it seems like we will concede every time the opposition has a crack on goal, so there’s a big chance we are going backwards this season. It depends how Ten Hag reacts to this current run of form because there is a chance he doesn’t last the season especially if loses the dressing room.

Basically I have no expectations for this club until we have new owners.
 
At the start of the summer it was "build on/improve on last season"... but not selling the club, a crap window and crap start to the season makes me not really expect much.

Having said that, we are only one point down from the corresponding fixtures last season - so yeah.
 
Just stop getting beat away from home, dont get pasted at Anfield and we can build from there.

Expectations are rock bottom.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
At the start of the summer it was "build on/improve on last season"... but not selling the club, a crap window and crap start to the season makes me not really expect much.

Having said that, we are only one point down from the corresponding fixtures last season - so yeah.
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I wanted to look at the corresponding fixtures points but honestly there is zero chance we can manage our home record from last season specially against the big teams so we will struggle to overall get 70’points even
 
Top 6 is where I think we'll end up but even that will be tough with the competition this season. City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and Brighton are all looking good Chelsea could turn it around too. Then you have your outsiders like Villa and Brentford that could have standout year, the top 6 will be a hard fight for all.
 
Ayush_reddevil said:
I wanted to look at the corresponding fixtures points but honestly there is zero chance we can manage our home record from last season specially against the big teams so we will struggle to overall get 70’points even
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Corresponding fixtures wise (if you sub out relegated teams for promoted teams) would see us go on an 8 game winning streak (including City at home).

That ain't happening.
 
GueRed said:
After the start we've had 4th or 5th will be an achievement.
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My thoughts exactly. We’ve had an unlucky start to the season. We’re without a recognised striker- have been since Ronaldo sulked off. Our young emerging talent has been booted out to Getaf. Shaw and Varane put injured so we end up with Evans, Maguire and Lindelof on against Arsenal. Then Anthony’s alleged shite going on. It’s one thing after another. ETH hasn’t been able to play a full strength side it seems since he got here. There’s always something. One positive is that surely things can only get better.?
 
My expectations coming into this year was that it was going to be a see-saw style season, with good and bad moments. So far, we've had more bad moments than I expected but I still maintain this. Things can change pretty quickly but given the club trajectory on and off the pitch, on the balance of it, I understand why people will say it looks bleak.

Last year we finished top 4, played 2 cup finals and one won. That was good for that season. This season, I think there still has to be a goal and some sort of progression but not necessarily major progression, need to be realistic given what's going on around the club as well as the start to the season.

The away record must improve against the top half teams so that would be a good place to start? Also, work on fixing the defence and keeping a cleansheet again. These 2 things need to improve and then we'll have something to build off.

Other goals will include trying to get top 4 again although that already looks unlikely, we're fighting Newcastle/Chelsea/Spurs/Brighton for it. Can see us finishing 6-7th. Can see us not get out our CL group, so a good Europa League run would be reasonable (and that's probably our level). Otherwise, hope for some luck in the cup competitions like the FA Cup again.

On that CL group. Galatasaray as a club haven't played knockout CL since 2013 so would be a disaster if we manage to not make it through, but given everything around the club, it wouldn't surprise me if we do go out. It's got a similar vibe to the PSG/Leipzig/Istanbul group we had a few years back.
 
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Doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to get Champions League qualification in which case we’d probably be better off finishing out of the European places altogether, like Spurs last season.
 
Top 4 minimum

A good brand of football is needed as well im sick of watching shit football every week even when we win it's usually a slog or grind to the final whistle it's inexcusable when you see the likes of Brighton passing it around with Welbeck, Lallana and Milner on the field ffs
 
Based on what we have seen so far I am expecting us to get dumped out of Champion League in group stages and finish 6th or 7th. Can see us getting few hammerings as well, wouldn’t be shocked if we conceded 5 goals or more in 3 or 4 games.
 
CL places is still the aim. EtH has a lot of issues to deal with but we have spent money and regression isn’t acceptable.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
We will either improve in next ten games and be back on track to challenge for top four or the manager will be gone
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I’m afraid this is probably right. If we don’t improve we will be in the bottom six and I don’t think the board has the nerve to wait out that shitstorm.
 
Still the same as before the season, finishing in the CL places.

Think people are overreacting to a tough opening set of fixtures that came at a time when we were ridden with injuries and other absenses. We've started badly but there's also a decent element of misfortune at play.

We have one more tough game against Bayern, then seven easier games across the PL and CL. With two more injured players returning imminently in the shape of Mount and Amrabat.

If things aren't looking much better by the time we're heading into the City home game at the end of October, then I'll be concerned.

Right now I'd advise waiting for the fixtures, injuries and performances to even out a bit before making any hard predictions.
 
We all assume what Erik is trying to do is complicated and will take a lot of time. I'm hanging it on that Ajax team that spanked Madrid a few years back. Think we all are. This is blind faith though isn't it. As we know and see, so many 'lesser' teams play consistent, structured and decent football and often not long after a manager arrives. I assume we aren't as what Erik is trying to do, is hard for that bunch of players. Otherwise why on earth are we seeing the same naive crap week in week out. It's mental. Injuries or no injuries, they've been like this since Feb no matter who plays. He isn't going to get the time to get it right if this continues up to Xmas. I obviously want him to succeed but how complicating is what he's trying to bring FFS? All I can hope is that his methods suddenly start coming through and it trumps all these other teams as it'll take us to elite levels whereas instant Ange ball and Brighton consistent levels etc only get you so far. That's basically it. It's a lot to hope for isn't it after what we've seen for months on end!
 
Manutd GOGOGO said:
I wish this was true but the Glazers are micro-managing all the staff and players transfer for some reasons... Ten Hag wanted his own physio from Ajax but was rejected by the Glazers...

Just found another excerpt fromTheAthletic

An agent says this approach has seeped into the football side, with chief negotiator Matt Judge, who worked with Woodward at JP Morgan, allowed minimal latitude: “The Glazers micro-manage everything. That’s why it all takes so long to sign players or offer new contracts. It’s no coincidence numerous players have got down to the final year of their deals. It goes from Matt to Ed to Joel to Ed to Matt. It’s excruciating. And in that time, Liverpool have signed a player.”
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That is both interesting and depressing. And thank you for putting me right on this.
 
Avoid relegation. Get rid of Glazers, Arnold, Murtough and ten Hag, and I would call the season a success.

My best guess is that we will finish eighth. I think City will easily win the league, Liverpool, Arsenal and Brighton are locked for UCL spots, with one of Newcastle, Spurs getting fifth and sixth. Chelsea and us after them, but probably some team like Villa, West Ham or Branford will outperform and finish ahead. Gonna be a shit season.
 
Clean house. Get rid of the Glazers and their yes-men. Beyond that, I really don't care. There's functionally no difference between finishing 6th and finishing 17th. Hell, you could even argue there's no real difference between 2nd and 17th, since we won't be fluking a CL win a la Chelsea anytime soon.
 
Win UEL, get top6-8, best possible outcome.

At the end of the season reassess and whoever doesn't want to put in the effort, needs to go, no matter their name is Rashford or Amad Diallo, we need some fecking standards.
 
The season has just started, we should always get top 4. If not we have to sack the manager. I think ETH will turn it around. I expect a top 4 finish and atleast going through the group stage of CL
 
Initially I thought we'd close the gap a bit on City. Maybe finish 2nd or 3rd and have a good run in the CL. Judging by how everyone else is playing so far this season, we're the worst of the top clubs, including Chelsea. Obviously a lot can change, but objectively I can't see us getting a CL spot. I'm also worried that if we don't recover quickly this could turn into Ole's last season.
 
Someone said:
Initially I thought we'd close the gap a bit on City. Maybe finish 2nd or 3rd and have a good run in the CL. Judging by how everyone else is playing so far this season, we're the worst of the top clubs, including Chelsea. Obviously a lot can change, but objectively I can't see us getting a CL spot. I'm also worried that if we don't recover quickly this could turn into Ole's last season.
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That's judging us over a period where we've had both an injury crisis and the toughest opening fixtures of the top four contenders. I don't think that's a firm basis for drawing any conclusions.
 
sullydnl said:
That's judging us over a period where we've had both an injury crisis and the toughest opening fixtures of the top four contenders. I don't think that's a firm basis for drawing any conclusions.
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You're right but I can only go by our current form. It's very hard to be optimistic at the moment.
 
We're consistently somewhere between 2nd with a cup at best and 6th with nothing at worst. That's been the case for a decade and will be this season again.
 
Hopefully we can balance the piss-poor league campaign with a surprisingly effective Champions League campaign in the group stage - going into the Europa League is a dead-end and waste of time with Liverpool in there, so second in the group and then out in the first knock-out round would be my slightly optimistic hope.

Domestic cups would require a lot of luck to avoid the better teams; we could get a deep run in one of them with a good draw but we're not achieving anything there.

Which place in the Premier League qualifies for the Conference League? We should have a chance for that at least; embarrassing maybe, but better than a season out of Europe altogether - that's just dull.
 
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