United are coming off a 12th place finish, with a 17 point and 7 place drop off from 2024/25. No European football for them this season and that, along with a head coach five years in the job might have had me calling this a likely comeback season. However, they wasted £125m on two hugely disappointing strikers last summer, one who is now 30yo and the other totally unsuited to how they wanted to play and spent another £55m on a winger who was used sparingly, despite the club having ongoing injury issues. There was only minimal hope of an upturn looking at expected numbers and they have sold two of their three best players in Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon and it appears that the third, Bruno Guimaraes is on his way out of the club too. That decision forced the departure of the aforementioned head coach, Eddie Howe, just three weeks before the start of the season. They have spent a large sum in total on four incoming players, but all are aged 18-20 yo, the quartet have bags of potential, but only one full and two half top flight seasons between them and no experience of English football. 

 

It appears that Matthias Jaissle will replace Howe. The 38 yo German has had great success with Salzburg and Al Ahli ( same owners as United, so that makes sense), but has no English experience and Saudi and Austrian football is a long way removed from the EPL , both in terms of the quality required and the pace of the game.

 

I am sorry, I am struggling for a positive beyond no European football.

 

Good luck!