Every Manchester United win is the greatest victory you've ever seen. Every Manchester United loss is the most embarrassing defeat in the history of sports. That's just how this works.
In other words, Manchester United are the Dallas Cowboys of the Premier League: a franchise that hasn't won anything in forever, but still drives the weekly conversation because of how big they are.
United haven't seriously challenged for a Premier League or Champions League title in nine years, and they've only finished in the top four in four of those nine seasons. But despite all of that, they still led all Premier League clubs (at least the ones that aren't currently being investigated for illegally inflating their commercial revenue) in commercial revenue last season. The lack of on-field success has very slowly eroded United's once-massive financial advantage, as both Manchester City (see: previous parenthetical) and Liverpool brought in more revenue last season.
Yet even with a sixth-place league finish last campaign, only three clubs (those two, plus Real Madrid) made more money in 2021-22. There isn't another club in the world who could maintain that kind of global interest after such a comparatively awful decade of performance.
Perhaps, then, it's unsurprising that after a few months of solid performance under first-year manager Erik ten Hag, you've begun to hear the whispers, if not outright shouts: Are Manchester United ... in the title race? They're only five points back of first place!
Let's just get it out of the way: No, no they're not.
OK, so why not?
Manchester United have 46 points through 23 games. That's a tidy two points per game, which would stretch out to a 76-point full-season haul.
Since 1995-96, when the Premier League moved to a 20-team, 38-game schedule, only one team has won the league with fewer than 76 points, and that was Manchester United with 75 points in the 1996-97 season. Only two other teams have won the league with fewer than 80 points: Arsenal in 1997-98 and United in 1998-99.
Put another way, outside of the first three 20-team Premier League seasons, no one has won the league with fewer than 80 points. Over the previous 10 seasons, which have seen a massive rise in quality across the league -- especially within the top six -- the winner has averaged 91 points. If Manchester United win all of their remaining matches, thus ending the season on a club-record 16-game win streak, they will finish on ... 91 points.
United's 46 points through 23 games doesn't even rank in the top 50 for the 20-team Premier League era. And over the previous 10 seasons, it doesn't even rank in the top 30.
Mark Ogden and Janusz Michallik give their opinions on an enthralling 2-2 draw between Manchester United and Barcelona at the Nou Camp.
But what if they get better?
Well, is there any reason to expect United to get better? I can think of a few: Ten Hag continues to figure out his best combination of players, Wout Weghorst finally scores a couple goals, either Jadon Sancho or Antony provide something (anything) on the wing opposite of Marcus Rashford, the team as a whole just gets better at executing whatever it is that Ten Hag wants them to do.
That's all possible, but it ignores a couple of major factors: All of the other teams in the league can make similar arguments about themselves, and United are pretty lucky to even be on 46 points.
Although they've won the third-most points per game in the league, United have scored the seventh-most goals per game (1.7) and allowed the fifth-fewest goals (1.2) per game. If you're thinking that the seventh-best attack in the league and the fifth-best defense shouldn't add up to the third-best team, you are correct. Four other teams in the Premier League have a better goal differential than United, and three of them -- Arsenal, City, and Newcastle -- have been twice as good at outscoring their opponents.
How do United have so many points? Well, they've won a ton of one-goal games, and the only real predictor of future one-goal wins is how many games you win in general. United have nine one-goal wins this season, which accounts for 64% of all of total wins. On average, one-goal wins only account for around 40% of an average Premier League team's wins.
In other words, United are winning one-goal games at an extremely high rate -- and even if they keep it up, which isn't likely, they're only on pace to finish the season with 76 points.
Goals are random, though, aren't they?
Goals are a better indicator of team quality than points -- and expected goals are better than both.
Through 23 matches, United have scored 38 goals on 35.46 xG and conceded 28 from 27.78 xG. There's no massive under- or over-performance on either end, which means that the one-goal wins are the main driver of United's point total.
Here's how their xG differential compares to the rest of the league:
Under Ten Hag, United's xG differential is right around plus-0.3 per game. That's better than last season -- when they conceded and created chances at the same rate and finished with an even goal differential -- but significantly lower than both of the seasons before that: plus-0.7 in 19-20 and plus-0.5 in 20-21. In fact, United's numbers are roughly equivalent to what they produced in the 2018-19 season, when they fired Jose Mourinho midway through the campaign and ultimately finished in sixth place.
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United's current point total isn't in the top 50 among all teams through 23 matches in the Premier League's 20-team era, and their underlying performance looks even worse. Stats Perform only has data going back to the 2009-10 season, but through 23 games, United's xG differential ranks 71st over that 14-season period.
Given that only 56 teams will qualify for the Champions League among that group, United look much more like a fringe top-four side, let alone a legitimate title contender.
There's really no shot, huh?
I wouldn't say that, but I would say that there's a way bigger chance they miss the Champions League than win the title. Per FiveThirtyEight, there's a 2% chance that United win the title, and a 26% chance they don't finish top four. There's also a 2% chance, according to the model, that United finish in eighth.
Our impression of Manchester United is always inflated, but their performance in one-goal games and the concurrent decline of their rivals Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham has especially inflated the impression this season. On top of that, the fact that they've played more games than both City and Arsenal for most of the season creates the illusion that United are closer to the top of the table than they've ever actually been. By points per game, they're closer to Tottenham in fifth than they are to first.
Now, it's not that United haven't fundamentally improved from last season. As I mentioned earlier, they scored as many goals as they conceded last year. I'm skeptical of Ten Hag's tactics as a driver of their upswing, but his ability to (1) recognize that Cristiano Ronaldo was making the team worse despite scoring goals, and (2) remove Ronaldo from the squad without it somehow tanking team morale speaks well to his ability to manage. Rashford, too, looks back to his 2019-20 self.
I'm not sure it's simply all upward trajectory, either, though. On the other wing, Antony has really struggled to impact matches, and we'll see if Sancho's return to the team can provide a consistent boost. Both Casemiro and Christian Eriksen were massive upgrades in the midfield, but both Casemiro and Christian Eriksen are north of 30 years old. A couple of other key players, Bruno Fernandes and Raphael Varane, will be 29 and 30, respectively, at the start of next season.
There are some clear areas to upgrade -- Wout Weghorst is the starting center-forward! -- but the club hasn't really committed to a clear rebuild (i.e. only acquiring young players) in the way that Arsenal did a few years ago. In terms of average age (weighted by minutes played), United is in the older half of the league.
And yet, despite all of that, they are still only five points out of first place with 15 games to play. Arsenal and City could both collapse while United go on a heater over the past couple of months. But so far, there's nothing that suggests that Manchester United are good enough to win the title -- not results, not goals, not the underlying performance that best predicts goals and results, and not even the name on the front of their jerseys. (That last bit applies to you too, Dallas.)