Not like any other season isn't but given the expectations of Erik ten Hag's third campaign at the club, it really should be quite the watch.
As I said, this will be the third year that the Dutchman will take charge of United after what was perhaps an overachieving first season and a very underwhelming second.
Feels like a movie trilogy this tenure of ten Hag's.
First one good, second one not so much. The third is either pretty shite or the greatest of the lot.
Toss of a coin is 24/25.
I can't wait 💪.
Premier League
Realistically, top 4. Unrealistically the title with the maximum of 114 points. That should be what we strive for anyway.
Having finished 8th last year, the standard isn't set too high. United won't have to be anything special to improve upon that dismal finish which was our lowest in Premier League history.
However, there are quite a few good sides in this tough league of ours. Anything is possible. Aston Villa finished fourth in Unai Emery's first year after all!
This league is full of surprises.
As we are Man Utd though and we have a standard to keep, top 4 is the bare minimum.
Erik ten Hag managed to achieve this feat in his first season which was a shock to many but then the disaster of 23/24 unfolded and we finished closer to 10th than 4th. The manager was given a bit of leeway due to the 70+ different injuries and illnesses suffered by his squad last campaign.
That is probably some record not just for United but in football. A lot of those injuries were also to key players who ended up missing large portions of the season.
Lisandro Martinez had three separate injuries that caused him to miss majority of the campaign; Luke Shaw was injured as well most of the time (although that's not new with him); new signing Mason Mount had FOUR seperate problems resulting in 27 games missed; Casemiro was out for 2 months although with his poor form, one would say his was out all season; even captain Bruno Fernandes, the machine Bruno Fernandes, the never-stop-running Bruno Fernandes was out for two games. The fact that even he got injured should tell you everything.
There were a whole host of other injuries, knocks, illnesses and unrelated football matters that kept players out for periods of time.
Whatever you think about the manager, no coach would be able to play anywhere near his side's best football with those amounts of absences.
But, should all go to plan and we don't have those injury problems, I don't think there can be any complaints about United not having a good style of play nor finishing in the top 4. We definitely should be good enough to do that at least.
Erik ten Hag has been backed better than his first two summers and better than any previous MUFC boss. He can have no complaints when looking at the business done.
Signings like Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Noussair Mazraoui, Matthijs De Ligt and whoever else joins give ten Hag all the tools to play a better brand of football which is something we've all being crying out for.
The style is potentially the biggest improvement the manager needs to make. Should we play better, I do believe top 4 will be very gettable.
As we know with the league, it's a marathon not a sprint so we'll need to be consistently good for long periods at a time to get the position we want in the end.
United haven't been anywhere near consistent enough for a long time as the only thing we're consistent at is being inconsistent. That needs to change.
When it comes to the big 6, in two season, Erik ten Hag still hasn't managed to get a victory on the road at Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and City.
In these ten games, United have:
Won - 0
Drawn - 3
Lost - 7
Conceded - 31
Scored - 12
We have only kept the one clean sheet and we haven't even scored at Anfield.
At home though, the record is much better:
Won - 6
Drawn - 2
Lost - 2
Conceded - 13
Scored - 18
We also know that against the top 10 in general, United were poor. Goal scoring was also hard to come by last term as MUFC scored just 57 and conceded 58 times (the most we've ever let in in the PL) giving us an embarrassing -1 GD.
Erik ten Hag spoke about chance creation over the pre-season and how he was "pleased" that we were at least creating the opportunities even if we weren''t taking them.
Creating scoring opportunities and then taking them are two areas of our game where we need some serious improvement.
When looking at the most shots had by United players last year, our striker Rasmus Hojlund sits 7th on the list for most shots with 38.
It's no surprise that Alejandro Garnacho (100), Bruno Fernandes (95) and Marcus Rashford (62) are all ahead of the Dane.
What is surprising though, is that Scott McTominay, Antony and even our CDM-turned-CB Casemiro all had more attempts at goal than our centre-forward.
We are much too selfish and don't create anywhere near enough chances for our striker. If we want to get more goals, players need to be less selfish and more team players rather than individuals.
With Ruud van Nistelrooy as a coach, I'm sure he'll be letting the players know that they should pass the ball a lot more. He himself hated selfishness from team-mates when he was a player so...
We were always going to have a problem defensively when you look at the injuries. Only Diogo Dalot remained fit the entire campaign out of all our defenders other than the goalkeeper.
This is why we were very suspect at the back and gave up around 3289 shots. That needs to be eradicated as well. It also didn't help the defence that we had a loose cannon of a holding midfielder in Casemiro who was all over the place and just not his usual self in the midfield. Having a 2-month injury layoff didn't help him either.
There is much to improve in the league and in general. Whether we see these improvements or not is another matter.
Carabao and FA Cups
We are the current holders of the FA Cup. We upgraded from the Carabao Cup the previous year.
With that sort of level up, we will obviously win the league 😏.
While winning the domestic cups aren't the trophies we want, winning them is still great especially when that Carabao Cup triumph came six years after we won our last trophy.
For Erik ten Hag to win two trophies in two seasons is pretty great even more so when considering he's had to takeover the worst Man Utd side in Premier League history, deal with all the drama off the field, an injury crisis and a mid-season takeover.
He defied the odds to beat City in May and give us our 13th FA Cup putting us one behind Arsenal in the all-time list.
This shows that ten Hag is a manager who goes deep in cup competitions. He won the Carabao Cup in his first season and also got to the FA Cup final, and won the FA Cup in his second. This is a good thing as it all but guarantees us a chance of getting silverware.
Since he's won two in two, the expectation is there for him to make it three from three . I'm sure that now with a better squad, he will try and go all out again this season.
Europa League
Thursday nights are back 🙌!
Indeed, United have dropped down from the Champions League to the Europa League after our worst-ever season in Europe's elite club competition.
Let's just move on from that.
While we did finish 8th and outside of all European spots, winning the FA Cup meant that we qualified for the Europa League.
It isn't the competition we want to be in, let's get that out of the way. But as we're in it, I want to win it. That is the mentality of Erik ten Hag as well as 'we want to win every game' is something that he repeats almost every press conference.
We were in the competition in ten Hag's first season and we made it to the quarter finals. We were dumped out in a pretty shit manner thanks to a 3-0 defeat in Seville.
This shows that even in this competition, the manager will go for it. The Europa League has always been quite demanding so a bigger and better squad will be required.
Much like the Champions League, the EL will have a new format so this year's tournament would probably be it's most gruelling.
Having to go from Thursday to Sunday will also play a big part on how well we do this season. That is why the more players we bring in, th more chances we have of rotation.
Fitness in this campaign will be the key.
Final Thoughts
High expectations if I'm honest.
Given the positivity of the transfer window and the fact that Erik ten Hag has managed to make us competitive enough to win trophies when we're shite, gives me a lot of optimism.
Now that he will have a better squad, imagine what he can do.
I'm hopeful that we will see a better Ajax, I mean United 😅, because of all these new signings with a couple of them already being familiar with ten Hag's style.
I also believe that this season will come down to fitness. The team that is fittest will perform best. We know that United do have a problem with running more than the opposition. In fact, far too often, the opponent outruns United resulting in these flat displays from MUFC and the opposition out performing us.
That is another area where heavy improvement is needed.
Whatever happens though, I'm just really happy proper football is back.
C'mon Yanited! GGMU!
Background Images: Man Utd team v Man City | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd) | Erik ten Hag | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)