Where will we finish this season ?

Where will Manchester United finish in the Premier League table in the 2022-23 season?

  • 1st

    Votes: 23 4.1%

  • 2nd

    Votes: 17 3.0%

  • 3rd

    Votes: 72 12.8%

  • 4th

    Votes: 104 18.5%

  • 5th

    Votes: 146 25.9%

  • 6th

    Votes: 130 23.1%

  • 7th-10th

    Votes: 49 8.7%

  • Bottom 10

    Votes: 22 3.9%
  • Total voters
    563
  • Poll closed .
I am struggling to understand why the expectations are so low. Whilst last season was a complete disaster in many ways, the team still finished 6th. The seasons before, they finished 2nd and 3rd. They even were in the title race around Christmas the season before last. Since then, the only really significant departures I can think of are Greenwood (well you know what I mean), Matic and Mata. The last two were increasingly 2 or 3rd tier back up players.

On the plus side, we've added Sancho (who seems very much a ETH player), Varane, and now Martinez, Malacia and Eriksen. Oh and de Beek, although I'm not exactly convinced by him. We've also got what was mostly a young squad two years ago moving towards peak age, and several promising youngsters emerging. I'll put Ronaldo aside, as it isn't clear if he will stay.

However, we also should recruit a further midfielder, and if we don't, one has to say the responsibility lies very much with ETH for his single minded dogged pursuit of de Jong. United seem to be giving ETH wholehearted backing, and the issue is how much de Jong really wants to come.

Have the others improved ? 2nd place was arguably flattered by Liverpool having a lot if injuries, but Chelsea have had a lot of churn, and Spurs more or less stumbled into fourth place by default.

For me, the missing piece has been the coaching, and if ETH can't in the top four, then you have to ask if he is really making the difference.
 
Tottenham and Arsenal has strengthened their teams better than us thus far, and we've lost more players. So.. I would predict 6th or 7th.
 
4th. We had the 3rd or 4th best squad last season and if we had hired a good interim manager we would have finished 4th pretty easily last season. Ralf was a horrible pick as it turned out.
 
Anywhere between 4th and 7th, depending on further signings - while right now it looks unlikely that we'll sign anyone else, things can change quickly in football - and on other teams.
 
There are too many unknowns:

Optimistically 3rd, that 3rd could be better if the world cup affects City/Liverpool players. If anything, the world cup might affect Liverpool more because of the lack of strength in depth. 2nd at best.

More realistically 4-6. it also depends on signings and how ETH system works. The Liverpool game concerns me if there are more late signings and what happens with Ronnie. We cannot go into that game with Martial up front.
 
5th

Just not enough depth in that squad

It will be tight 4th to 6th between Arsenal, Chelsea and Us
 
bosnian_red said:
Basis for improvement is that last year was a disaster year from all around down to an unhappy squad and garbage coaching. It was not our real level. This summer we've made the biggest improvement getting Ten Hag and his coaching team as an upgrade on Ralf and Ole. Which is an enormous upgrade.

Transfer wise we need more of course, mainly a RW to compete, but it's pretty obvious that our basis for improvement on last year is that this year won't be a disaster year where every player hits their floor at the same time and we go through 3 managers with nobody caring? Just having a new permanent manager and a cleaner squad will lead to an improvement, let alone it being a top coach.
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Seems optimistic to me. Maybe.

Time will tell if we have really improved much in the coaching department. Recruitment is also crucial and I am personally pretty unsure about our business so far.
 
6th would be par. 7th-8th wouldn't be that surprising if the likes of Newcastle, Villa and West Ham have good seasons.
 
3rd with FDJ and one other signing IMO, 5th without
 
With no more incomings or outgoings I'd fancy you to battle it out for 5th.

Any higher than that and EtH has done a great job.

If you get FdJ and maybe another signing I think you can have a go at 4th.
 
6th

4th if we get de Jong and another attacker
 
Our squad strength is only at 6th but I trust ETH will bring us to 4th.
 
As it stands, 5th or 6th.

We finished 11 points the rest of the top six last season and 13 points behind top four. Even assuming ETH bridges a lot of that gap, realistically we also needed to do a better job of strengthening the team in the transfer market than at least one if not two of the three teams ahead of us. As it stands we have arguably strengthened the least.
 
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sincher said:
Seems optimistic to me. Maybe.

Time will tell if we have really improved much in the coaching department. Recruitment is also crucial and I am personally pretty unsure about our business so far.
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You could say "time will tell" if we appointed Klopp instead of Ole. Ten Hag is undoubtedly a top coach. He has achieved excellent things at Ajax, and you see the early signs are fantastic already. Of course, time will tell, but it's not a random baseless hope to just say "Ten Hag is a big step up from previously relegated at Cardiff Ole, or interim manager Ralf with MLS level coaching staff". We had absolute garbage as our coaching staff the past few years. So it's not a high bar to beat. So of course, we will be massively improved, especially as Ten Hag is actually just a top coach.

Recruitment is crucial, I agree. But we will be massively improved from last season anyway even without anything else. Will we be improved enough relative to the others is the question. Conte and Tuchel are also very good coaches, and Tottenham has had a good window, while Chelsea to me is looking more likely of a collapse season than others so far. Arsenal have made good signings and have some momentum, though I don't rate Arteta much, at least not yet. And then there is Klopp and Pep, the top 2 coaches at the #1 and 2 teams in world football with their squads as well. So nobody is touching them yet. But I have no doubt that Ten Hag is the best possible manager we could have appointed, and I think he has the potential to get us to the top. But we need the recruitment right to get us there.

Basically, we might still finish 6th, but we could improve massively and still just finish 6th because a lack of options up front and others doing really well as well, and 3rd to 6th being a very tight group at this point. Just like we finished 2nd under Ole and I don't think we improved from the previous year when we were 3rd, or when we finished 2nd and I thought we were worse than when we finished 6th under Mourinho. We'll see a huge improvement this season, but where it will take us in the league position at the end of Ten Hag's first season remains to be seen and a lot probably rests on the next month. But long term no worries from me as we'll get there with ETH, just won't be instant.
 
Top 4

Now, where is the Brighton thread? We should be discussing the first match of the season.
 
BackfromtheRed said:
I am struggling to understand why the expectations are so low. Whilst last season was a complete disaster in many ways, the team still finished 6th. The seasons before, they finished 2nd and 3rd. They even were in the title race around Christmas the season before last. Since then, the only really significant departures I can think of are Greenwood (well you know what I mean), Matic and Mata. The last two were increasingly 2 or 3rd tier back up players.

On the plus side, we've added Sancho (who seems very much a ETH player), Varane, and now Martinez, Malacia and Eriksen. Oh and de Beek, although I'm not exactly convinced by him. We've also got what was mostly a young squad two years ago moving towards peak age, and several promising youngsters emerging. I'll put Ronaldo aside, as it isn't clear if he will stay.

However, we also should recruit a further midfielder, and if we don't, one has to say the responsibility lies very much with ETH for his single minded dogged pursuit of de Jong. United seem to be giving ETH wholehearted backing, and the issue is how much de Jong really wants to come.

Have the others improved ? 2nd place was arguably flattered by Liverpool having a lot if injuries, but Chelsea have had a lot of churn, and Spurs more or less stumbled into fourth place by default.

For me, the missing piece has been the coaching, and if ETH can't in the top four, then you have to ask if he is really making the difference.
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I like your positivity and get where you are coming from....and of course hope you are right....but

2nd place - It was the covid period with no crowds and we went a season unbeaten away, which is still crazy now. Liverpool had injury problems, Chelsea had Lampard in charge and not doign very well and players not settled or used correctly, Arsenal and Spurs were both pretty poor.

Is our side significantly improved purely player wise from two seasons ago? We have lost second choice keeper, all of our full backs have gone backwards and I would include Dalot in the last 12months. Old but the only central midfielder who could play in the pivot defensively has left, our only talented central midfielder though he failed miserably here has left, our best wide player may not play again, Fernandes is wy past his purple patch honeymoon period and looks to be what he is, a talented yet wasteful player who needs to consistently make game changing moments or his effectiveness.....isnt. Could go on and on with the current players.

Then our signings Malacia could become our number one or have a Telles effect improving Shaw with competition, but does he significantly improve the first eleven? Is Eriksen not Mata with a better range of passing....he probably does improve the first eleven regarding Fernandes....who woul dhav esaid that two years ago, but he is 30. I dont know much about him but so far for me Martinez and an improved hopegully SAncho are the only improvements on our first eleven....is that enough to push us into the top four?

The most important thing you are forgetting though....so far this summer I would say all of our competitors on paper look to have improved there squads more than we have and bar Arteta they also have top top managers....so I dont see how Ten Hag bridges that gap.

We could come 3rd with a great season, I dont buy it, we could come 7/8th I dont expect that, but 5/6th seems pretty realistic to me....maybe a couple of big signings before the window close can change that, but I not confident of top four personally
 
I've gone for 7th-10th. I do think that EtH will be very good for the coaching side of things but the rest of the club is still rotten.

The squad is paper-thin and not exactly filled with top talent. We don't have a midfield and we're likely to be relying on Martial which seems fairly close to suicide.

I just can't see how the manager will overcome the lack of talent, and I suspect that once things start going awry, some of the players will pull the same stunts as they did this past season.
 
The biggest problem is that City, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal have all improved their squads. They look much stronger compared to recent years. The only team that looks weaker are Chelsea, but they still have a strong squad and they always seem to grind out results. It was much easier to get top four last year compared to this year.

It honestly feels like this season is going to be one of the hardest to get top four. It’s a long time since all top 6 teams have looked this strong. You look at the rosters and the managers and there’s not really a team that you think are in a bad spot. It’s going to be a really difficult season to get top 4.

I hope and will be glad with a top 4 finish if we play better football than last year.
 
Feel like ETH is going to realise by like October that this lot can't be relied upon, the sides chasing 3rd and 4th are all a much of muchnss though so we'll see
 
Put it this way: with things as they stand right now, being overtaken by us would point to it having been a bit of a nightmare season for any of Chelsea, Spurs or Arsenal. There's no way we finish ahead of any of them where they're not very disappointed with themselves. And for top four we'd need to finish ahead of two of the three.
 
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If Fred and McTominay are our midfield 7th to 10th
 
I think realistically 5th. Window isn't closed yet so let's wait and see. FDJ would make us much much better. Forward depth better again. A breakout for one of our youth players too? Garnacho for example. So who knows. But right now, I think 5th.

But then when I think of our squad, at some point in their careers we have players who at some point in their career been very very good or better (let's not get bogged down by world class v prem class etc) in DDG, Varane, Maguire, Martinez, Shaw, Eriksen, Donny, Fred, Bruno, Rashford, Sancho, Ronaldo. The stock of almost all of these players was torpedoed by last seasons debacle and we will never rate these lads less. With a manager who potentially can get everyone playing to their potential, there could be room to be pleasantly surprised if everyone actually plays to their true ability. This season is so hard to set expectations for because of this. At least it makes it interesting anyway.
 
I can't recall a more difficult season to predict. Every one of the top 6 has a higher-than-usual percentage chance of finishing in any of those positions IMO
 
5th for me, if we get Frenkie.
Our depth and quality up top is lacking. We also have no right back of any quality. Our midfield is terrible, unless we get Frenkie.

4th and 6th is possible, but top 3 should be out of reach.
 
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