Manchester United will play 40 matches across their 2025-26 campaign, making it their shortest season since 1914-15.
The world’s most written-about football club is in the middle of a minor institutional crisis, with a long list of questions and a frustratingly small cadre of satisfactory answers, but this much is known: it is the middle of January and United will not compete for silverware in 2025-26.
Sunday’s 2-1 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion makes this the first season since 1981-82 that United have been eliminated from both domestic cups in their opening game. Following their Carabao Cup elimination against Grimsby Town in August, Ruben Amorim said his players “spoke very loud” with their performance. Old Trafford was noticeably quiet for prolonged periods of this FA Cup tie, a home crowd trapped in apathetic stupor as United players struggled to break down a well-drilled opponent.
Darren Fletcher’s time as caretaker manager has not yielded the same short-term lift as seen with Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2024 and Michael Carrick in 2021. The under-18s manager has United playing with a back four again, but many of the problems that plagued the tenures of Amorim and Erik ten Hag before him have continued.
United are not strong enough to break down better Premier League sides. They do not move the ball with the necessary speed or accuracy to stretch defences. First touches of the ball are too loose and rarely set up proper second touches. They do not defend with enough collective discipline to shut teams down and keep them out of their penalty box.
This is the third season in a row in which United have reached a historical low point. Victory in the 2024 FA Cup final plastered over a damaging eighth-place league finish — their lowest in the Premier League at that stage — before defeat in the 2025 Europa League final pushed 2024-25 into further ignominy, having finished 15th. United look a long way from winning a league title in 2028 as part of INEOS’ Project 150, and do not have the sort of best-in-class figures Sir Jim Ratcliffe has previously spoken of bringing to the club.
The minority owner has rapidly gone from being a potential saviour of the club to holding an unpopular reputation among the fans. A protest banner directed at Ratcliffe was unfurled in the Stretford End shortly after the full-time whistle on Sunday, giving the message that at least a section of supporters do not believe he has the answers the club needs. The 1958 fan group have described themselves as “irate” and intend to organise a protest march before the club’s February 1 fixture against Fulham.
Fletcher made the brave decision to rotate his starting XI for this cup game, bringing Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte into central midfield and asking his players to play in a direct, punchy style. It wasn’t to be.
Darren Fletcher has taken charge of Manchester United’s past two games (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
On too many occasions on Sunday, the right ball fell to the wrong player. Bruno Fernandes would spot an excellent run behind the Brighton defence from Diogo Dalot in the second minute, but the full-back could not beat an onrushing Jason Steele.
Injuries and Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON)-related absences have limited Fletcher’s playing options; Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez aside, there is a timidness to their actions. Some United players are so fearful of making mistakes that they would rather pass sideways than challenge their opposite man. Confidence has plummeted. Crosses are speculative and commonly directed towards the back post. Shots lack bite.
United are in a difficult vortex of bad and unlucky. Any unforced errors end up being punished in the harshest manner possible, while too many of their good plays fizzle out before they truly get going.
Brighton’s opening goal was the sort of team sequence good United sides used to pull off multiple times a half, but the type this current squad struggle to defend against.
Danny Welbeck’s goal in the 64th minute was his eighth from 19 games against his former club. United have previously tried to re-sign the 35-year-old, believing his experience would help a dressing room full of young strikers still to find their feet in the Premier League. It’s a sensible plan, one in keeping with so many devised by United in recent seasons. Unable to decide on a new, modern vision for the club, decision-makers attempt to bring back someone from their past.
Benjamin Sesko’s consolation goal brought small hope of a comeback on Sunday, but he is one of several caught in this difficult sideways drift.
So, how do you go about fixing Manchester United? Who do you entrust with such a responsibility?
“If I look at the players and we get players back from injury and AFCON and we get a fuller squad, these players have the ability to qualify in the Champions League place,” said Fletcher after the defeat.
If this is to be his last game in caretaker charge (he will report to Carrington training ground for a meeting on Monday morning), then he does so urging his club to do better. Whichever figure chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox decide upon for the remainder of 2025-26, that person will have one clear goal: to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
The relative lack of games between now and the end of the season is largely uncharted territory for an institution of United’s size, history and financial commitments. Things are made more difficult by the fact there is no singular problem affecting the club, but a messy knot of issues, many of which take root at the highest level. United are a club with wonderful ambitions off the pitch, but they play such limited football on it.
Can INEOS properly prioritise the more solvable troubles now, while also devising solutions for a hectic summer? Many good decisions need to be made in a row to stabilise the club, yet it takes but the mildest misstep for things to tailspin yet again.
Manchester United seasons are meant to be long and involve some discussion of silverware or European football but 2025-26 risks finishing with neither. The clock is ticking loudly for several important figures around the club. Things need to move quickly and correctly before difficult Premier League matches against Manchester City and Arsenal. United will not want to have another historically bad season anytime soon.
