Thread by @VenkyReddevil

Manchester United needs to start the season better to properly challenge for the title: A Thread ( No Visualisations). Thanks to @jaseziv's wonderful #worldfootballR package that made this analysis a lot easier than I originally thought

#mufc secured back-to-back seasons of #UCL football for the first time since Sir Alex retired. Not just that, we also did this with a game left. However, once again, #mufc did not have a good start to the season which has been a recurring theme in recent years.

Most discussions around what United needs to do to win the title involve answers like a good transfer window, buying so and so players, etc. All that is there but if #mufc are to really win/challenge for the title we need to have a good-to-excellent start to the season.

Our start to the season has been pretty average for the last 8 seasons with the 17/18 season being a marginal exception. In order to do this analysis, I have considered the first 10 games of a season.

Historically, any team with < 6 wins in the first 10 games cannot be considered as title challengers. That being said, City in 20/21 had only won 5/10 games. However, from December to February, they went on an amazing run that can be rarely repeated.

In 17/18, #mufc had one of their best starts to the season in recent years, winning 23/30 points. However, that was the only season in which we won more than 6 games in the first 10 games of a season since Fergie retired. We got to 81 points in that season.

In 19/20, Under Ole, we won only 3 of the first 10 games. That number increased to 6 in 2020/21 and we at one point were top of the table but eventually dropped off because of a lack of consistency towards the tail end of the season.

In 15/16 as well we had 6 wins from the first 10 games and had 20/30 points but poor results during December meant we eventually dropped off the race.

Comparing these numbers with the title winners from recent seasons, Liverpool in 19/20 won 9 of their first 10 games. City in 17/18 won 9/10 games and in 18/19 won 8 of the first 10 games. Chelsea in 16/17 won 22/30 points and had 7 wins from the first 10 games.

A major reason why United don't win as many games as they should early in the season is because of their defensive record. In 20/21, United conceded 17 goals in the first 10 games but 35% of it coming in one game if you exclude that game 11 in 9 games.

In 19/20 though, we conceded only 10 goals but our failure to score enough resulted in losing costly points at the start of the season. In 17/18 we conceded only 4 goals in the first 10 games, another evidence to show we had an excellent start to the season that year.

Comparing these numbers with the title challengers from recent years. City have not conceded more than 11 goals in the first 10 games in the last 8 seasons. They have been champions 4 times during this period. Liverpool in 19/20 conceded only 8 goals in their first 10 games.

Chelsea in 16/17 conceded only 9 goals and in 14/15 conceded only 10 goals. The average for a team looking to win the title/start the season well is somewhere around 9-10 goals.

It is a popular opinion that titles are decided in the weeks of December-January as the schedule gets hectic. However, a good start to the season, especially defensively, could play a massive part in determining if a team is a proper challenger or not.

If you've come this far, thanks for reading :) You can check out @jaseziv's package below:

github.com/JaseZiv/worldf…