Manchester United season review: baffling, ridiculous and ridiculous… and then they won the FA Cup

In 2000, world-renowned film critic Roger Ebert said that the thriller The Skulls was “so ridiculous in so many ways that it achieves a kind of hopeless grandeur. It’s in a category by itself.”

Which is how The Athletic could have described Manchester United’s 2023-24 match if it hadn’t been for the glorious FA Cup winning save. The club has endured a Russian season plagued by injuries, farcical revelations and all manner of chaos.

Occasionally, football was also played.

Let’s review a season that often defied description but somehow had a happy ending.

The moment they will remember the season for

Manchester United won the FA Cup.

They did it with two goals scored by academy graduates in the final, both still in their teens.

Their second goal was one of the best collaborative moves scored in 2023-24 by any team, let alone one playing against the reigning Premier League champions.

Manchester United won the FA Cup for the 13th time (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

A biography is more complicated than a montage and the full story of United’s 2023-24 season will include some painful defeats as well as a handful of frustrating draws on their way to an eighth-place finish in the Premier League and a disappointing League campaign Champions.

But Erik ten Hag’s side found a way to be exceptional on a brilliant Saturday afternoon at Wembley Stadium. In a season that contains several events that many fans would rather forget, United provided a shining moment that will live long in the memory.

The moment they wished had never happened

In a dismal December, Ten Hag pleaded for patience from fans, believing the return of Casemiro and Lisandro Martinez from injury would restart things in early 2024. A small unbeaten run that began in January showed the manager’s theory has merit . United were much improved when the latter returned to their starting XI.

And then Vladimir Coufal fell over Martinez’s knee in the 3-0 win over West Ham United. The Argentine The centre-back has been diagnosed with a medial collateral ligament (MCL) injury and has missed United’s next five Premier League games. He managed 21 minutes in a 1-1 draw against Brentford at the end of March, but then went down with a calf strain.

Martinez, 26, finished the campaign with just 14 appearances for the club, totaling 900 minutes. United were much poorer in his absence. How good would the season have been if Coufal hadn’t gone down on Martinez?

We’ll never know, but we’ll definitely be thinking about it a lot.

Lisandro Martinez injured his knee against West Ham in February (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Goal of the season

In twenty years’ time, someone will stumble upon a compilation of United’s best goals scored in 2023-24 and it will be amazed at the way this side finished the season with a negative goal difference.

Take Alejandro Garnacho’s bicycle kick against Everton, one of the best-scored in Premier League history.

In what could have been a difficult game against Everton – their first since their initial points deduction – Garnacho managed a moment of magic to silence a febrile Goodison Park.

It has been an interesting season for the striker; 10 goals and five assists is a solid return for a 19-year-old still finding his feet in senior football. Much was asked of Garnacho, perhaps too much — he made 50 appearances (a total of 3,574 minutes) — but when fit, few United players are more dangerous.

Garnacho’s relentless running forced Josko Gvardiol and Stefan Ortega into the defensive error that led to United’s first goal in the cup final. He may not be the biggest or strongest striker, but his bloody mind makes many big boys tremble in their boots.

The statistic that sums up the season

It was a historically bad campaign in many ways, but in the interest of brevity, we’ll illustrate one of them with a chart.

United allowed their opponents to shoot at an alarming rate. Ten Hag said he wasn’t too worried, but the counter-attacking frenzies that have become commonplace in the second half of the season have left more than one fan chasing more than a few gray hairs.

To make your football group chat slightly interesting, take this stat too: Ten Hag have been booked four times in the Premier League this season.

We don’t have an exact tally for Ten Hag’s mentions of Garnacho’s offside goal against Arsenal at the Emirates, but it’s somewhere in the double figures.

Did this really happen?

Manchester United 4-3 Liverpool will be one of the biggest games in the FA Cup. It was a delirious, hilarious and confusing counter-attack ding-dong that saw Antony score with his right foot (!) and Amad score a fantastic counter-attack goal.

Liverpool have played Ten Hag’s side three times, recording 87 strikes and zero wins.

The sight of Amad walking down the tunnel after being sent off will live long in the memory. The Stretford End has rarely seen a United player red card so hilarious.

Amad scored the 121st minute winner against Liverpool in March (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

The best quote

At the end of United’s 4-3 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers, the cameras panned on Sir Alex Ferguson. The legendary former United manager looked quite pleased with the result and as his gaze returned to the pitch he could be seen uttering just one name: ‘Mainoo’.

An ankle injury meant Kobbie Mainoo had to wait a while before being integrated into United’s midfield, but he has rarely moved a foot since becoming a mainstay in the starting line-up. The club found a player of excellent promise.

The player who could be a breakout star next season

Ethan Wheatley made club history when he came off the bench in a 4-2 win over Sheffield United to become the 250th academy graduate to play for Manchester United’s first team.

At a time when strikers are at a premium and hard to come by in the transfer market, the 18-year-old could establish himself as a squad option in the senior squad.

(Rest assured The Athletic is working on a profile of Wheatley in the coming weeks.)

Teenage forward Ethan Wheatley (left) has made three senior appearances this season (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

What would the owner have said to the manager after full time on the last day

Suppose Sir Jim Ratcliffe wanted to speak to Ten Hag in his native language to get his point across as clearly as possible.

“Het loopt in de soep…” is a Dutch idiom that translates to “he walks in the soup”. It is used when you want to describe situations that went horribly wrong. “… maar dit was goed” means “but that was good”.

The United manager produced a tactical masterclass at Wembley, canceling out Pep Guardiola’s best attacking assets. The 2-1 win will go down as one of the club’s greatest triumphs since the Ferguson era. If stories are best remembered by their endings, then Ten Hag have pulled off one of the most surprising and felicitous turnarounds in recent football history.

The problem that will dominate the summer

Who will be United manager at the start of 2024-25?

The 2023–24 season is the club’s sixth finish outside the top four in the 11 seasons since Ferguson stepped down. The Ten Hag started the season talking about United becoming the best transitional team in the world, only to eventually describe the entire club as in a moment of transition, one that will require patience and a process to move away from .

The Dutchman struck a confident and combative tone after the win at Wembley. Despite the many dysfunctions and chaos at the club, he found a way to deliver two trophies in as many seasons. Should INEOS decide to part ways with him after completing a large-scale overhaul of the club, then Ten Hag would leave with their heads held high and their success with fans at their highest point in 2024.

If senior executives look at the available candidates remaining for the job and decide it is best to keep Ten Hag, then the challenge becomes building a football structure that maximizes his footballing strengths and minimizes any perceived weaknesses .

GO DEEPER

Analyzing Erik ten Hag and Man Utd’s managerial candidates: Tuchel, Pochettino, De Zerbi and more

Investigating the many injuries suffered by players in 2023-24 will be another worthwhile pursuit.

United found a fantastic way to end an otherwise dismal season. This summer, the big issue is making sure the mistakes of 2023-24 are never repeated.

(Top photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)