There are some theorists and thinkers who believe that life is simply a series of seven-year cycles, in which we suffer successes and pain, experience significant events and come out of the other side with some kind of emotional and spiritual growth to call upon.
In football, there are no guarantees that a club will return to their former glories or more after the seven years are up – just ask the supporters of Manchester United.
Their last EPL title came during the 2012/13 season, meaning that they are now more than a decade into their cycle of becoming the hunter rather than the hunted – unheard of for a club that won eight of the first eleven editions of the Premier League era (plus five in seven from 2006/07 to 2012/13).
Identifying what has gone wrong at the Red Devils is easy on the one hand and more challenging on the other, but as they saw out 2023 with another humbling defeat – this time at the hands of Nottingham Forest – United are no closer to solving the problem, and they look vulnerable in the race for a top-four finish, let alone a title tilt.
All of which has football historians scrambling for the record books, looking to identify the worst season in Manchester United’s history. On the pitch, in the post-war era, that came in 1973/74, when the Old Trafford outfit was relegated to the Second Division for the first time since 1937.
There’s little danger of the current United side suffering a similar fate, but it is interesting to note that they are potentially vulnerable to their worst-ever campaign since the First Division was rebranded to the Premier League in 1992.
Holding Out for a Hero
Part of Manchester United’s woes can be traced down to one seismic event in the club’s modern history: the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson as manager.
It could have been one of football’s great butterfly effect moments: the Scot was one game from the sack as United boss in 1990. If the club’s board had pulled the trigger, who knows what would have happened next – it’s very unlikely that they would have embarked upon one of the most dominant eras in the history of the beautiful game.
Blessed with a generational conveyor belt of young talent – David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, the Nevilles and co – plus a knack for spotting the stars of tomorrow (Cristiano Ronaldo was merely a gawky kid from Portugal when Ferguson’s scouts first laid eyes on him), the Scot set about building a dynasty that has never been matched in terms of domestic top-flight dominance.
The visuals below showcase Manchester United’s Premier League finishes during Ferguson’s tenure (in red), with the second set in white those that have come since he decided to retire.
There is simply no better illustration of how Ferguson’s retirement hit United hard than this.
But the plot thickens. Here’s a look at the win ratios of all of Manchester United’s permanent managers during the Premier League era:
- Sir Alex Ferguson – 59.67%
- Erik ten Hag – 59.09% (as of December 2023)
- Jose Mourinho – 58.33%
- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – 54.17%
- David Moyes – 52.94%
- Louis van Gaal – 52.43%
Ten Hag spoke of his belief that he could turn around United’s fortunes during their beleaguered run of 2023/24, and given his win ratio – a shade shy of Ferguson’s – it’s easy enough to believe him.
Even Jose Mourinho, whose prickly, conservative style did not endear him to an Old Trafford faithful spoiled during the Ferguson years, did a good job based upon win percentages alone – albeit not enough to challenge for a Premier League title.
Owning It
Ferguson delivered success to United even in the face of Chelsea’s takeover by Roman Abramovich, which suggests that good old-fashioned managerial nous can still overcome an open chequebook when it comes to winning titles – but if you can combine the two, as the state-funded Manchester City have done with Pep Guardiola, then you have an irresistible combination on your hands. It would have been interesting to see how Ferguson would have fared against the onslaught from United’s rivals.
Of course, the Red Devils have wealthy owners of their own – the controversial Glazer family. Many United fans want them out of the club, and were overjoyed when Sir Jim Ratcliffe acquired a 25% shareholding; not that that enables him to usurp the Glazers as far as decision-making is concerned.
One of the criticisms that United supporters have of the Glazers is that they haven’t done enough to support their various head coaches in the transfer market. If that’s the case, it’s little wonder that the club’s finishing positions in the Premier League have diminished over the past decade or so – but is it actually true that the Glazer family are slow to open the purse-strings?
The data would suggest not….
Premier League Big 6 Transfer Spend (Millions)
| Club | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chelsea | 180 | 39 | 214 | 102 | 530 | 1065 |
| Manchester United | 71 | 204 | 72 | 123 | 210 | 680 |
| Manchester City | 67 | 146 | 150 | 119 | 134 | 616 |
| Arsenal | 69 | 138 | 74 | 144 | 165 | 590 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 0 | 130 | 95 | 82 | 153 | 460 |
| Liverpool | 157 | 8 | 72 | 75 | 123 | 435 |
As you scan across the seasonal spending, do you get the impression that the Glazers have been tight with their money? In truth, United have been every bit as frivolous as the other ‘big six’ clubs in the Premier League, with only Chelsea consistently outspending them since 2018/19.
Indeed, United’s epic splurges of 2019/20 and 2022/23, which saw more than £200 million spent on new players on both occasions, are amongst the single-most expensive seasons of transfer spending in recent memory.
But as far as a pound sterling per trophy calculation goes, United have been shocking in recent times – confirmation that the person who identifies and buys new players is the most important at any football club. On that front, the Glazers must be absolved of any guilt; it’s telling that ‘football director’ John Murtough is instead facing the sack at the start of Ratcliffe’s tenure as part-owner.
A better judge of player, allied to the Glazers’ continued spending power, may just be enough to advance United back towards something like their glory days under Ferguson….
What is Manchester United’s Lowest Premier League Points Total?
As of December 31, 2023, Manchester United had taken 31 points from their 20 Premier League games thus far – a points-per-game ratio of 1.55. If you extrapolate that over the course of a 38-game campaign, it would lead to a season’s tally of 59 points; in 2022/23, that would have secured Ten Hag’s men a lowly ninth-place finish.
Given that they spent £210 million on new players during the 2022/23 season, it’s little wonder that United fans are desperate for heads to roll….
It’s only in the fullness of time that we’ll learn if 2023/24 will become the worst season in United’s Premier League history, but it’s certainly on course to be exactly that.
Mind you, there’s stiff competition for that unwanted accolade during these post-Ferguson years.
There have been plenty of lows – 64 points in David Moyes’ first season in charge, or the three occasions on which they claimed just 66 points (2015/16, 2018/19 and 2019/20) – but none matches the nadir that was 2021/22.
If any criticism of the Glazers is fair, it has to be the absolute catastrophe that they self-induced in what is undoubtedly the worst campaign of the modern era for this proud club.
Their first mistake was to retain Solskjaer as boss – his win ratio was already way down on what would be expected of a Manchester United manager, and it was no shock when he was finally relieved of his duties in November 2021.
Then came the Ralf Rangnick experiment, which in terms of success is right up there with the Stanford Prison scandal. Although the German had enjoyed plenty of triumphs in an advisory role with the likes of Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig, it was evident from early on that he was not cut out for management in English football – by the end of his 31-game reign, Rangnick had an astonishingly low win rate of just 35.48%; one of the lowest in Manchester United history.
Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t asked to stay on beyond the end of the 2021/22 campaign.
Things went from bad to worse when the PR exercise to bring back Cristiano Ronaldo backfired hopelessly. He simply did not fit into the continental style that Solskjaer or Rangnick wanted to play, and his second spell at Old Trafford came to an end in inglorious fashion a few months later after Ten Hag had taken charge.
Winning just one of their last six games of the campaign, United would finish the season with just 58 points – their worst tally of the Premier League era.
What is Manchester United’s Lowest Premier League Finish?
Although that unimpressive haul of 58 points is the lowest in Manchester United’s EPL history, curiously it isn’t their lowest finish.
That came in 2013/14, when Moyes inherited the impossible job of trying to replace Ferguson – armed with an unbalanced squad featuring many older players that, while crowned champions the prior season, were coming to the end of their careers at the top level.
There were some obvious similarities between Ferguson and Moyes – both Scottish, both pragmatic when talking with the press, both considered to be excellent man managers, although Moyes did not have a stack of silverware to his name prior to taking the Old Trafford hotseat.
If the club’s board were expecting Ferguson 2.0 – who himself recommended Moyes as his successor – they were grossly mistaken.
In July 2013, United lost their first game under Moyes – a pre-season friendly against a Thai All-Star XI, and things barely improved from there.
A convincing 4-1 win in their Premier League opener against Swansea City proved to be the exception, rather than the rule, as they won just one of their next five outings – a run that included the rather hurtful 1-4 loss at the hands of bitter rivals Manchester City.
By the start of October, United were down in 12th place in the Premier League table, and while they would occasionally string together a series of decent results, they never climbed any higher than fifth thereafter.
Moyes would last until April 2014, when the boos and cat calls of the Old Trafford faithful came too much for the club’s board to ignore any longer. Ryan Giggs took charge as player-manager on a temporary basis, and while he saw out the season with a formline of W2 D1 L1, it was not enough to propel United any higher than seventh place – their worst-ever finish of the Premier League era.
What is Manchester United’s Worst Ever Season?
The 1957/58 season will always be remembered as the worst in Manchester United’s history – the tragedy of the Munich air disaster claiming the lives of 23 people, including some of the ‘Busby Babes’ era of domination helmed by Sir Matt Busby.
It’s a credit to the club and the spirit of the people of Manchester that they were able to regroup from a disaster of such unthinkable magnitude, avoiding relegation immediately thereafter and finishing as high as second in the First Division in 1958/59.
Manchester United’s 1957/58 First Division Season
Aside from 1957/58, the worst season in Manchester United’s history from a purely footballing perspective has to be 1973/74 – the only time in the post-war era that they have been relegated to the second tier of English football.
Manchester United’s 1973/74 First Division Season
In truth, they were lucky to avoid relegation the previous season when finishing 18th, with the club embarking on a similar transition to when Moyes followed Ferguson – the likes of Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best coming to the end of their distinguished careers at the top level at the same time.
Tommy Docherty, like Moyes later on, had an enormous job on his plate, with results on the pitch as dire as his dealings with the likes of Best off it – the mercurial Irishman walking away from his beloved Manchester United altogether during this torturous campaign.
Docherty’s increasingly bizarre decisions also saw him appoint goalkeeper Alex Stepney as penalty taker, while a run of just four wins between September and March ensured that the die was cast early on.
Back in the seventies, managers were rarely sacked willy-nilly, so Docherty was given ample time to turn things around. However, with their top-flight status on the line, United lost each of their last three games to condemn themselves to their first relegation in more than three decades.
Ironically, Docherty would lead them to the Second Division title at the first time of asking after the club’s owners kept faith in him. United would then re-establish themselves as a top flight club….although they’d have to wait until 1992/93, the inaugural season of the Premier League rebrand, before they could celebrate a top-tier title.
How long will United’s increasingly-desperate supporters have to wait for their next?