Man Utd Sink to 40-Year Low, Giving Michael Carrick Nowhere to Hide

The last time Manchester United started a season this poorly, the manager was soon fired and a hot, young recruit named Alex Ferguson was handed the reins.

Ferguson was at the helm for 27 years, has been retired for 13 and will celebrate his 85th birthday on New Year’s Eve. That is how long it’s been.

Saturday’s 1–1 draw against a Tottenham Hotspur team that started the weekend bottom of the Premier League and was reduced to 10 players after falling a goal behind less than 20 minutes from the end means the Red Devils have taken six points from the first six games in 2026–27.

It was previously the joint-slowest start the club had experienced in the Premier League, matching 2014–15’s five points from the opening five matches. But that iteration of Manchester United, guided by Louis van Gaal, crucially won the sixth game.

This few points through six matches, an average of one per game, now makes it the worst start since the Premier League era began in 1992. You have to go further back to fall 1986 to find anything worse—back then, Ron Atkinson led United to four points over the same timeframe.

Man Utd’s League Start to 2026–27 Compared to 1986–87

2026–27	1986–87
Hull 2–0 Man Utd	Arsenal 1–0 Man Utd
Ipswich 5–2 Man Utd	Man Utd 2–3 West Ham
Everton 2–2 Man Utd	Man Utd 0–1 Charlton
Man Utd 0–1 Man City	Leicester 1–1 Man Utd
Fulham 1–1 Man Utd	Man Utd 5–1 Southampton
Man Utd 1–1 Tottenham	Watford 1–0 Man Utd
Six points	Four points

It got worse before it got better 40 years ago. Games seven and eight also ended in defeats at the hands of Everton and Chelsea, before a Nottingham Forest draw left United with only five points from nine matches and 21st out of 22 in the league standings.

A brief upturn that followed kept Atkinson in a job until Nov. 4, with Ferguson arriving two days later. He’d broken the established order in Scotland with Aberdeen and even led the Dons to a European trophy, beating Real Madrid in the 1982–83 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup final.

It was a slow burn to begin with—United initially sank further. But Ferguson reset the culture and had almost completely overhauled the playing squad by the end of the decade.

Michael Carrick Must Ask, Answer Serious Questions

Through this season’s underwhelming start, Michael Carrick has been holding onto the idea that small margins have been responsible for dropping points. Everton scored a late equalizer to capture a draw at the start of last month, while Manchester City’s derby winner objectively should not have stood. It was an own goal that cost them victory against Fulham, while another stoppage-time equalizer took away two more points against Spurs.

“That’s two late goals that have hurt us a little bit this season—everything looks very different if they change. But the reality is what it is, and we need to accept it and do better,” he said.

The weird thing is it makes no sense. United had the best points haul in the entire Premier League during Carrick’s 17-match audition in the second half of last season and the on-field personnel is close to identical.

But there is a pattern emerging. Manchester United are not performing. Former club captain Gary Neville called the first 15 minutes after halftime against Fulham in the final match before the international break the worst he’d seen in 45 years of being a fan. By halftime against Spurs, the team had accumulated just 0.05 expected goals (xG) and still only finished with 0.77.

In those last two games alone, it’s been failure to beat a team in the relegation zone. And Spurs have had as many managers as league wins in 2026—three of each.

Things also aren’t about to get easier. United are already starting to face accusations about not being up for the fight. The team ranks towards the bottom of the Premier League for distance covered per game this season and the next two opponents—Atlético Madrid in the Champions League and Leeds United—work hard and will try to take advantage of that.

The Red Devils looked sluggish rather than refreshed following an international break in which a number of players either weren’t called up by their respective countries or withdrew. Yet the games now come thick and fast, with seven more in total before the next pause for international in four weeks, Como, Roma, Chelsea and Aston Villa among them.

Add us as a preferred source on Google