Possession but little threat – data behind Man Utd’s Brentford drubbing

Manchester United’s woeful start to the season under new manager Erik ten Hag escalated with a 4-0 hammering by Brentford on Saturday.

Here, the PA news agency assesses the statistics behind their latest defeat.

For the second week running, United dominated possession but failed to make it count. Ten Hag’s side had exactly two thirds of the ball according to the Premier League’s official statistics, an increase even on the 63 per cent in their loss to Brighton the previous week.

They had 699 touches of the ball, including 525 passes, compared to 421 and 255 for Brentford, but were unable to carve out clear chances.

By contrast, the Bees’ clinical edge was exemplified by the lightning two-pass counter-attack for Bryan Mbeumo to score the fourth goal and Mathias Jensen dispossessing Christian Eriksen to instantly slot home the second.

Erik ten Hag wanted to make Manchester United players run 13.8 kilometres (8.5 miles) during their exercises in their extra training session today. Brentford players ran 13.8 kilometres more than them yesterday. Distance covered yesterday: Brentford 109.4km United 95.6km.

— Kaveh Solhekol (@SkyKaveh) August 14, 2022

One figure that sparked plenty of discussion after the game was the distance run by the respective teams, 95.6 kilometres for United compared to Brentford’s 109.4km.

While distance figures are of limited use in isolation, and may be explained to a large extent by the disparity in possession, it was interpreted in some quarters as illustrating a lack of commitment.

Ten Hag cancelled United’s scheduled day off on Sunday and there were reports he wanted to make his players run the extra 13.8km during the added training session.

United did have 15 shots to Brentford’s 13 across the 90