Where Manchester United rank in 2023 Premier League table and what it says about Erik ten Hag

Manchester United will hope to start 2024 in better form than they finished 2023.

Erik ten Hag's side were beaten 2-1 by Nottingham Forest on Saturday night in what was their ninth league defeat of the season, equalling their top-flight tally from last term. The Reds finished third in May but face an uphill battle to repeat that achievement this term.

United start the new year in seventh and could drop to eighth if Newcastle United beat Liverpool tonight. The first year of Ten Hag created optimism with a return to the Champions League and the Carabao Cup success but that has now evaporated and the manager is under pressure.

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The Reds have regressed and many of their rivals have kicked on. A look at the Premier League table for 2023 shows United in fifth but that tells only half the story.

Ten Hag's men played 42 league games in 2023 and have taken a total of 74 points. But 43 of those arrived from the 22 matches in the second half of last season at a healthy 1.95 points per game (PPG). That figure drops significantly when this term is taken into account with United returning just 1.55 PPG. The current ratio would see them accrue just 59 points this season which would be their second-worst Premier League return after the 2021-22 campaign.

It highlights a worrying trend for United, with only Brentford having a greater negative figure than Ten Hag's side. Manchester City's PPG is down 0.3 from 2.4 to 2.1 but Pep Guardiola's side have history of improving in the second half of the season and the serial champions have enough credit in the bank to not be