The scale of Manchester United’s underachievement has been highlighted by a financial analysis that rates their performance last season compared with money spent as one of the worst ever by an English club.
United had the third-highest outlay in the Premier League on
wages, transfers and agents, behind Manchester City and Chelsea, but finished
in 15th place on 42 points. The analysis suggests that was 33 points fewer than
the club should have achieved.
Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur were the next biggest
underperformers, while Nottingham Forest were the biggest achievers compared
with their spending, followed by Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion.
The analysis, carried out for The Times, was based on figures
reported in clubs’ most recent annual accounts (2023-24) to measure spending on wages
and amortisation, which reflects the outlay on transfers over several years, as
well as on agents’ fees for the 2024-25 season.
The sports intelligence agency Twenty First Group has used
the figures to calculate “expected points” — how many points a club would be
expected to secure over a season given their spending — and then measure how a
club have performed compared with their spending.
Omar Chaudhuri, the chief intelligence officer at Twenty
First Group, said: “Manchester United underperformed by 33 points. This is the
biggest underperformance by an English club in the Premier League era, beating
the likes of Aston Villa in 2016 and Chelsea in 2023, who also underachieved by
more than 30 points.
“In other words, on a pound-for-pound basis, this Manchester
United team is one of the worst English football has ever seen. Their spend was
12 per cent higher than both Liverpool and Arsenal, who have shown the level of
consistency that is possible with a top-six budget.”
United will experience lower revenues of at least £80million
next season through missing out on Uefa TV money by not being in Europe, by
having fewer matches at Old Trafford, lower Premier League merit money and a
£10million Adidas penalty clause for not being in the Champions League.
Nevertheless, Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert who
works at the University of Liverpool, believes United can still cope with the
challenges presented by Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) and buy
new players — especially if they can generate significant sums by selling
Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho.
“They are still the biggest brand in English football, the
wage bill will go down because they are not in Europe and it looks as though
[co-owners] Ineos are taking a draconian approach to cost-cutting so I think
they can box clever, get some new players and still not have any issues with
PSR,” Maguire said.
Forest have invested heavily in players since promotion from
the Championship in 2023 but still won 18 more points than expected, given
their spending. “They have managed to get more out of their spend through a
combination of smarter recruitment, a playing style that suits those players,
and one of the best injury records in the league,” Chaudhuri said.
He identified Brentford and Brighton as “perennial
overachievers”, adding: “This past season was another year of outperforming
teams on bigger budgets, with two of the lowest five spends in the league.”
It is the first season since Pep Guardiola took over at
Manchester City in 2016 that the club — the biggest spenders on wages,
transfers and agents’ fees in the Premier League — have underperformed relative
to their budget. Chelsea, the second-biggest spenders, have underachieved since
being taken over in 2022 but improved their record last season.
Chaudhuri added that it was the first time Spurs had
underperformed compared with their budget since 2008-09.
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