Manchester United suffered a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Spurs in the Europa League Final, ending their season trophyless. With only one game to go, they currently sit 16th in the Premier League table. Spurs could inflict further damage as they are currently one point behind them and could leapfrog United into 17th spot.
The main draw of winning the Europa League, other than the trophy, is the automatic qualification for the Champions League. This is a famous competition for Man United, who have won the trophy three times, but also for the revenue that it provides. Clubs receive £1.8 million for each win they pick up in the new league phase format, and also lose out on a minimum of four games’ worth of gate receipts and spending. For 2023/24, it was reported by the BBC, that Man United made £4.3 million per match on ticket sales before any food, drink or merchandise was sold.
But could failure in this game actually have long-term benefits for Manchester United that wouldn’t be felt if they weren’t in the Champions League next season?
Time for Amorim to embed his system at Manchester United
Ruben Amorim became Manchester United manager in November 2024, right before the busiest period in English football, while also managing Europa League football on Thursday nights. Straight away he made the change to United’s formation, which made them play with three central defenders and wing-backs as opposed to a four-three-three as they had been playing under Erik Ten Hag.
This tactical change has been a difficult process and has identified holes, such as at wing-back, that Amorim will look to plug in the summer. Amorim has been limited in his time on the training pitch so far with the busy Christmas period followed up by the knockout stages of the Europa League, and despite coming into the club three months into the season, has already managed 40 Manchester United games.
Allowing Amorim to have a full preseason to embed his ideas and system, followed up by free midweeks, which would have been filled up with fixtures, will keep his squad fresh and give them time to adapt on the training pitch that they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
This pressure of midweek football can cause a downturn in results as seen by Aston Villa this season, who only picked up one win in the weekends that followed their eight group phase matches.
Offloading of huge wages
As always, Manchester United will be a main fixture in the Gossip columns and transfer speculation. This has already started since the final, when Alejandro Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes cast doubt over their Man United futures in post-match interviews.
According to Sportrac, Manchester United have the third highest wage bill in the Premier League and are not getting value for money in their output, with 16 Man United players falling in the top 100 earners in the league.
For Man United to rebuild their squad they will need to reduce this wage bill and not having Champions League football may be the incentive that the top earners at the club to move on. Players like Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro are in the top five earners in the league taking wages of approximately £33 million collectively. If Manchester United can negotiatre transfers for players like this away to places like Saudi Arabia who will not only offer an inflated transfer fee but also reduce the wage bill by 17%.
United played 15 Europa League games this season and therefore will actually require fewer players for next season and can afford to reduce the depth of the squad that is required as they will only be required to play in the 38 league matches and the amount of games within the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
Reduction of expectations
Despite now being 13 years removed from their last Premier League title and the Sir Alex Ferguson era, expectations still remained at a high. This hasn’t been helped by the fact that United have always found a way to win a trophy, even when playing poorly. This was exemplified by winning the FA Cup and Carabao Cup under Erik Ten Hag, despite league form being poor.
Paul Scholes when asked for his predictions of the final, focused on “experience and history” as the key factors for United to win. Pundits like Scholes, Gary Neville and Rio Ferdinand typically predict that this Manchester United side will outperform the current squads ability based on the size of the club.
Despite the failures of last season Neville predicted that United would finish third in the league on Sky Sports and even said he was “quietly optimistic” of more. This United squad have a young core that can be built on. This core however needs time to be build upon and failure in this instance will allow them to build together and grow into the future if given the opportunity to do so.