Last season, Manchester United finished in eighth place. Since the breakaway Premier League was formed in 1992, they hadn't ever been any lower.
Over 38 games, they conceded one more goal than they scored — also a club-worst in the Premier League era. In fact, the last time a Manchester United team produced a negative goal differential — back in 1990 when we still called it the «First Division» — the Premier League didn't even exist.
For a team with higher revenues than all but four other teams in the world, United almost have to actively try and be this bad in order to be this bad again.
And with a new minority owner, billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, taking over the club's football operations, plus Dan Ashworth (who helped rebuild England's national team, Brighton and Newcastle) leading the way in the new front office, perhaps a seventh, sixth, or even fifth-placed finish seemed like it might be on the cards this season.