Pick whatever reason you want for why Manchester United fired Erik Ten Hag this week, and it likely has some validity. His teams averaged fewer points than Louis van Gaal’s United teams (and averaged fewer with each progressive season), scored fewer goals than Jose Mourinho’s and gave up more goals than David Moyes’ . He seemed to have conflicts with more players than he actually developed. He suffered 10 losses of at least three goals, including five at Old Trafford in the last year and a pair of 3-0s in September.
The timing itself was honestly a bit odd — they could have sacked Ten Hag over the summer but instead got wooed by a sparkly FA Cup run and signed him to a brief extension, only to fire him during an unlucky run of finishing form. United’s new ownership seemed to acknowledge this summer that the squad itself was the No. 1 issue at hand and that until they got further down the road on rectifying that, the manager didn’t matter quite as much. Two months into 2024-25, they said, “Actually, no, it’s his fault after all.” It makes you wonder if they’re looking at the right criteria.
Regardless of the whys and whens — his permanent replacement, Ruben Amorim, is already lined up and ready to go — Ten Hag’s gone, and whoever’s in the dugout (caretaker and former United forward Ruud Van Nistelrooy has the gig until Nov. 11) has some immediate flaws to address. Through nine league matches, Manchester United has its worst record, worst goal differential and fewest goals of the Premier League era.
However, they’re not the only major European club struggling to meet expectations at the moment. While it’s easy enough to explain why certain upstart clubs like LaLiga’s Girona or Serie A’s Bologna have taken solid steps backwards this season after qualifying for the Champions League — they got picked apart by larger clubs in the summer transfer window — while others have disappointed for less obvious or justifiable reasons.
Let’s look at eight particularly disappointing teams in 2024-25, headlined by an awfully obvious one.
In a way, it fits that Van Nistelrooy will at least briefly lead the way for Manchester United because if this team is missing anything right now, it’s a Ruud Van Nistelrooy. (Amorim’s confirmation on Friday means he will soon lead the team, taking over during the upcoming international break.)
During his playing career, the Dutchman arrived from PSV Eindhoven in 2001-02 and despite coming off of an ACL injury, he scored 23 league goals, with 10 more in the Champions League, during his debut season. He would top 20 league goals in four of five seasons and right now, United desperately needs someone who remembers how to put the ball in the net.
Approximately one-quarter of the way through the 2024-25 season, United rank sixth in the Premier League in shots per possession, 10th in xG per shot … and 18th in actual goals. They are currently defying math in the worst possible way, creating more quality opportunities than they did last season in the Premier League, when they averaged 1.5 goals per game, but averaging only 0.9 actual goals.
In Sunday’s 2-1 loss to West Ham United, which would turn out to be Ten Hag’s final match, they attempted 18 shots worth 2.3 xG — including particularly high-value opportunities for Rasmus Hojlund, Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot over the first 32 minutes — but they didn’t score until Casemiro deflected in a Joshua Zirkzee effort in the 81st minute. In league play, Zirkzee and Garnacho have scored only three times from shots worth 5.6 xG. Fernandes is in the middle of a shocking finishing slump, attempting 28 shots worth 2.5 xG and scoring zero times. (He’s also failed to score from six Europa League shots.)
In that regard, Sunday was a fitting end.
Mark Ogden and Janusz Michallik agree that it is vital for Rúben Amorim to make a positive start as Manchester United manager.
Of course, good fortune has offset poor fortune this season, too. West Ham also struggled to finish on Sunday, attempting 12 shots worth a combined 3.0 xG, including Jarrod Bowen’s game-winning penalty in stoppage time. But as has been the case all season, poor finishing, combined with strong goalkeeping from United’s André Onana, defied math a bit, too: United are currently seventh in shots allowed per possession and 18th in xG allowed per shot but only seventh in goals allowed. For all the poor finishing, they’re barely lower in the table (14th) than their xG differential (12th) suggests they should be.
Despite mediocre possession play — they’re seventh in possession rate (53.0%), and their pressing is worse than mediocre (15th in passes allowed per defensive action, 16th in goals from high turnovers) — United are getting picked apart in counterattacks like a possession team sometimes does. They rank 19th in xG allowed on counters, and because of the stressed and scattered nature of their defense, they’re blocking only 22.9% of opponents’ shots (18th).
If the new manager — be it Van Nistelrooy for a while, Sporting CP’s Ruben Amorim or anyone else — can improve defensive form to some degree while United’s attackers emerge from their unsustainably poor finishing funk, United is a strong candidate for the proverbial (and usually fools’ gold) New Manager Bump. This roster isn’t “top three in the Premier League” good, but it’s obviously not the 14th-best roster in the league either. It’s early enough in the season that United are only five points out of a European place and seven points off of the Champions League pace.
In that regard, maybe the timing of Ten Hag’s firing makes sense after all.
Manchester United’s struggles have deflected attention from Newcastle United. Eddie Howe’s Magpies have won three, lost three and drawn three in Premier League play thus far and sit 12th in the table, just one point ahead of Ten Hag’s former squad. And the problems are rather Manchester United-esque: They can’t put the ball in the net.
After a disappointing 2023-24 campaign, Newcastle headed into this season in an uncertain position. Thanks to profitability and sustainability rules, their hands were somewhat tied this summer: They had to let two exciting youngsters — 21-year-old Elliot Anderson (Nottingham Forest) and 19-year-old Yankuba Minteh (Brighton) — go and really added only fullback Lewis Hall from Chelsea after the 19-year-old spent last year with the club on loan.
Considering this already felt like a rather thin squad after it got hit pretty hard by injury last season, that was a concern. And currently, five players who accounted for 97 starts last season — including star winger Anthony Gordon and left back Kieran Trippier — are out with injury.
When you’re never at full strength, that’s going to wear on you, but really, Newcastle’s biggest issue at the moment is pure finishing. They are a patient attacking team, sometimes to a fault, ranking 16th in shots per possession but second in xG per shot (0.19) and first in percentage of shots coming from inside the box (77.0%). But while this has produced an average of 1.6 xG per match (10th in the league), they’re only averaging 1.0 actual goals.
Before he got hurt, Gordon had combined with forward Alexander Isak and midfielder Joelinton to score just five goals from 49 shots worth 8.5 xG. And if you take out some nice finishing from winger Harvey Barnes (three goals from shots worth 2.0 xG) the team as a whole has converted less than half of its xG into actual goals.
Again like Manchester United, though, their poor finishing fortune has been offset by opponents suffering the same. Their defense has produced a downright confusing set of statistics: They allow the fourth-fewest passes per defensive action (PPDA, a common statistic used to measure defensive pressure) but have started just 6.7% of their possessions in the attacking third (20th), which means they’re getting very little from their pressure. They rank 15th in buildup attacks allowed (sequences with 10 or more passes that end in a shot or a box touch), which suggests they’re too passive, but they also allow more counter-attacking success than they produce (12th in xG margin on counters). It’s a scattershot defensive effort that has allowed the 14th-most shots per possession and 11th-most xG but only the fourth-most goals.
For Newcastle to rebound, they have to simultaneously rectify the poor finishing fortune while figuring themselves out defensively. Getting healthy would help. So would getting to spend a little money.
I’m not going to lie: I talked myself all the way into Roma this summer. After replacing Jose Mourinho with Daniele De Rossi in January, they played at a top-four pace in Serie A, improving their possession play and creating lots of high-quality shots (and, yes, occasionally getting ripped apart on counterattacks). And to a relatively exciting roster they added Artem Dovbyk, LaLiga’s leading scorer in 2023-24, and young Juventus winger Matìas Soulè. All of this seemed quite fun.
Roma have been no fun in 2024-25. Even after beating Torino on Thursday, they’re 10th in the Serie A table, and it’s in no way an unlucky 10th: They’re also ninth in xG differential and 11th in goal differential. They panic-fired De Rossi in mid-September, and after winning their first two matches with former Torino manager Ivan Juric in charge, they endured a nightmarish October stretch that began with a loss to Elfsborg in the Europa League and ended with a humiliating 5-1 loss to Fiorentina.
The problem? Counterattacks, as they’ve been almost the worst team in a major European league when it comes to stopping them.
The above chart shows how much shot quality (xG) teams in Europe’s Big Five leagues have both created and allowed in counterattacks in 2024-25. I highlighted both Roma and the six Big Five leaders (or co-leaders). The best teams either dominate on both ends of the counterattacking spectrum or dominate possession while stifling countering opportunities. Roma, instead, lives in the worst possible section of the chart, generating nothing from counters because of a possession-heavy style but giving opponents all the opportunities in the world.
Serie A is not an incredibly counter-heavy league, but they make an exception when Roma shows up on the schedule. Roma are eighth in shots allowed per possession and 15th in xG allowed per shot. They’re attempting 1.4 shots per match that are worth at least 0.2 xG (10th in Serie A), and they’re allowing 1.8 (14th). Only 59.4% of their shots have come from inside the box (15th), while opponents have attempted 70.2% (19th).
They’re doing plenty of possession things well: They’re starting possessions the furthest up the pitch on average, they’re first in high turnovers created, and they’re second in PPDA. But neither of two managers has figured out Roma’s issues in transition, and neither Dovbyk (five goals in 12 matches in all competitions) nor Soule (zero goals or assists in nine matches) have contributed as expected.
Bayer Leverkusen are fine — for the most part. They’re third in the Bundesliga, and they’re unbeaten in sixth place during the cluttered, 36-team Champions League table. But when you’re coming off of an unbeaten Bundesliga season and are already five points behind Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig less than a quarter of the way through the season, that qualifies as disappointing.
To the extent that Bayer Leverkusen are actually struggling in 2024-25, a lot of it is coming from pure regression to the mean. The Werkself averaged 2.33 points per game last season in matches decided by 0-1 goals. That’s just about as high as you’ll ever see, and when teams thrive that well in close matches one year, that fortune doesn’t usually extend to the next season. They’re currently averaging 1.71 points per game in those close matches this year; that’s just how this tends to go. But they’re also playing in more close matches. Last year, 18 of 34 Bundesliga games were decided by 0-1 goals (53%). This year it’s been seven of eight (88%). That’s what happens when your defense regresses from brilliant to extremely average.
Last year, Leverkusen were first in both goals allowed and xG allowed; this season they’re 11th and sixth, respectively. Last year they were first in shots allowed per possession and fifth in xG allowed per shot; this season they’re 10th and ninth, respectively.
They’ve allowed only one goal in three Champions League matches, and their attack remains ball-dominant and prolific. But from the very beginning of the season — and really, even in the preseason — the defense just hasn’t been as sharp. They allowed two goals to Borussia Monchengladbach in their first match, then three to RB Leipzig and Wolfsburg. Starting with a pretty fortunate 1-1 draw at Bayern on September 28, manager Xabi Alonso eased off the defensive pressure a bit, attempting to sacrifice quantity for quality – opponents are now taking more shots of lesser quality, but just last Saturday Werder Bremen tied them at 2-2 and generated more xG in the process.
The club held onto stalwarts Jonathan Tah and Edmond Tapsoba through the summer despite overtures from other clubs (especially for Tah), but at the moment it looks like a bit of new blood might have been a better option.
The ESPN FC crew discuss Tottenham’s win over Manchester City and whether they can go all the way in the Carabao Cup.
When it comes to close-game fortune, Bayer Leverkusen have fallen from “immensely fortunate” to “just about right.” Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur have gone from right to very, very wrong.
Spurs in matches decided by 0-1 goals, last four Premier League seasons:
– 2021-22: 35 points in 20 matches (1.75 PPG)
– 2022-23: 33 points in 21 matches (1.57 PPG)
– 2023-24: 33 points in 20 matches (1.65 PPG)
– 2024-25: one point in five matches (0.20 PPG)
Honestly, this is the whole game for Ange Postecoglou’s second Spurs team. At plus-8, they are tied for the third-best goal differential in the league with Chelsea. In four wins, they’ve outscored opponents by a combined 14-2. But four one-goal losses, following a frustrating opening-day draw with Leicester City, have dragged them down to eighth in the table.
Spurs are third in goals scored (2.0 per game), third in shots per possession and sixth in xG per shot. They dominate in counterattacking situations, having generated 2.8 xG from counters (second) while allowing just 1.2 (third). They’ve created the third-most buildup attacks (4.3 per game) while allowing the fewest (0.4). They’re first in PPDA (7.9), second in high turnovers forced and second in combined progressive carries and passes.
For the aggressive style Postecoglou demands, these stats are all exactly where they need to be. But either it all works or it all doesn’t. They’ve scored at least three goals in every win and have scored three total goals in four losses. And in those losses, they have gotten nothing but invisibility from their center-forwards. Dominic Solanke was the No. 9 for three of those losses, with Dejan Kulusevski in for the fourth; in those matches they combined for five shots worth 0.3 xG. When behind and unable to generate chaos in transition, they get bogged down like the typical possession team: no shot quality, few unblocked shots in the box, lots of aimless crosses and aimless possession.
Spurs have been too good in their good moments to rank just eighth overall, and they will likely progress toward the mean as the season unfolds. But with a recent injury to Son Heung-min, they’ll be asking players like Timo Werner to help right the ship in the short-term. That’s not optimal.
The good news: 18-year old American Cole Campbell made his debut for the reigning Champions League runners-up this week!
The bad news: He had to whether he was ready or not.
After a two-minute cameo in Saturday’s loss at Augsburg, Campbell played a sustained role — 43 minutes off the bench — in BVB’s DFB-Pokal loss to Wolfsburg, and he was perfectly solid. But he was one of only three BVB substitutes in 120 minutes; ten starters played at least 99 minutes. Wolfsburg, meanwhile, got 201 combined minutes, four chances created and the only goal of the match, Jonas Wind’s opportunistic in-the-mixer strike in the 117th minute, from its five subs. The extra energy made the difference.
All things considered, BVB played pretty well on Tuesday. Manager Nuri Sahin’s first-choice lineup has been detonated of late: Center-back Waldemar Anton and fullback Julian Ryerson have all joined center-back Niklas Süle, fullback Yan Couto, wingers Karim Adeyemi and Julien Duranville, and oft-injured attacking midfielder Gio Reyna on the injured-and-unavailable list. On Tuesday, Sahin started midfielder Emre Can at center-back and midfielder Pascal Gross at right back.
Considering BVB were already lacking in confidence and creativity before this run of injuries, this season seems to be going from bad to worse in Dortmund. When mostly healthy, this was a team often suffering from the typical problems of the typical possession team. They rank fourth in shots allowed per possession but 15th in xG allowed per shot. They generate tons of possession in the attacking third but have turned only 13.7% of those attacking third touches into box touches (the second-lowest ratio in the Bundesliga) and have turned only one of every 18.6 attacking-third touches into shots (also second-lowest). And when behind, they, too, turn frequently to aimless crossing and possession.
They need players who can try stuff, and some of their best “stuff-tryers” — Adeyemi, Duranville, Reyna, Couto — have been sidelined. And now the defense is a M*A*S*H unit. Oh yeah, and Gregor Kobel, an excellent goalkeeper who has struggled a bit more than usual this season, seems to be dealing with a lower-body injury as well.
The good news, as it were, is that things could be much worse. Granted, their only real trophy opportunity vanished with Tuesday’s loss, but while they’re seventh in the Bundesliga, they’re only two points outside of the top four. And despite last week’s demoralizing collapse in a 5-2 loss at Real Madrid, they still have six points in Champions League play and rank a healthy 11th, between Barcelona and Real Madrid.
Sahin is learning on the job — not a great time for that — but if he learns the right lessons and the team actually gets healthier, a rebound is highly plausible. But losing three matches in three competitions in eight days has certainly cast a growing pall.
In a lot of ways, VfB Stuttgart was the Bologna or Girona of the Bundesliga last season, an out-of-nowhere success story that was unlikely to continue. Just a year after narrowly staving off relegation, the Swabians surged to second in the league, but they lost defender Hiroki Ito to Bayern and both Waldemar Anton and goal-scorer Serhou Guirassy to Borussia Dortmund. They held onto manager Sebastian Hoeness, however, and while they had to pony up to keep 2023-24 loanee Deniz Undav on a permanent transfer, they also managed to add Augsburg’s Ermedin Demirovic to replace Guirassy.
So far in 2024-25, they’ve gotten a combined 16 goals and five assists from 39 chances created from the trio of Undav, Demirovic and emerging 22-year-old midfielder Enzo Millot. They took Bayer Leverkusen to penalties in the DFB Super Cup at the beginning of the season, they torched Borussia Dortmund 5-1 in September, and they pulled off a resilient 1-0 win over Juventus last week in Champions League play, where they’re currently 18th in the table, just ahead of PSG.
The bad moments have been atrocious, though. They fell by a combined 7-1 against Bayern and Freiburg in league road play, and they’ve drawn with Mainz (3-3) and Hoffenheim (1-1) at home. They’re currently ninth in the Bundesliga with a defense that ranks 12th in goals allowed and 11th in xG allowed. The attack is pretty and often controlled, but they’re getting all the downside of possession play (they’re 16th in the Bundesliga in xG allowed per shot and 15th in counterattacking xG allowed) without any of the pressing upside: They’re 16th in high turnovers forced and 13th in what you would call field position margin in American football (your average possession start minus your opponent’s). There’s a bit of an identity issue here, and an entirely new central defense — former Koln defender Jeff Chabot, combined with either 23-year old Anthony Rouault or 20-year old Anrie Chase — has been as inconsistent as you would probably expect.
With enough of the pretty moments, they can still accomplish solid things this year. But this has been a roller coaster.
For the most part, everything looks pretty much normal in LaLiga. The three teams that are always in the top four (Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid) are first, second and fourth, respectively. Villarreal, which reached the Champions League semis in 2022, is third. Athletic Club and Real Betis, which finished fifth and seventh, respectively, last year, are fifth and sixth. Pretty orderly stuff.
Real Sociedad is a bit out of place, however. After falling from fourth to sixth last season, thanks to a stolid attack that scored 19 fewer goals than Atletico and 10 fewer than Athletic Club (neither of those teams are particularly prolific), they are currently 11th because the attack has gotten much worse in 2024-25. It’s currently “between Getafe and Genoa” levels of bad.
La Real lost center-back Robin Le Normand (Atletico) and midfielder Mikel Merino (Arsenal) this summer, and while they got decent returns for both — a combined €66.5 million in transfer fees, solid work for players who are 27 and 28 years old respectively — a top-four finish was always going to be a lot to ask for. But they’re already eight points off the pace. While the defense has slipped a hair, the attack is average and the finishing is dreadful. They’re currently sixth in shots per possession and 11th in xG per shot, good enough to rank ninth overall in average xG. But while they’ve put 35.2% of their shots on target (sixth in LaLiga), they’re an appalling 18th in goals scored.
Young star Takefusa Kubo has scored twice from 14 shots worth 1.4 xG; everyone else: 114 shots, 12.4 xG, six goals. They scored three goals against hapless Valencia in September but haven’t scored more than once in any of 10 other league matches. This is alarming considering they’ve already played six of the bottom eight teams in the LaLiga table. The road isn’t going to get easier — three of their next four league opponents (Barcelona, Athletic, Real Betis) are in the top six — and they need to rediscover their finishing immediately.