Manchester United have not got the opening to 2026-27 they would have wanted after last season\u2019s strong finish, when Michael Carrick\u2019s side collected 39 points from a possible 51 across their final 17 league matches. Instead, five points from five games have left them matching their lowest Premier League-era return at this stage of a campaign.<\/p>\n
The early results have been uneven. Hull City struck twice from set pieces on opening day, Ipswich Town were beaten in a high-scoring game, Everton later rescued a point late on, Manchester City won through a refereeing and VAR error that has since been acknowledged, and Fulham exposed United during a slow opening 70 minutes. Even so, the underlying figures suggest the team are still reaching useful areas: no side has more touches in the opposition box than United\u2019s 182, while they have allowed the fewest touches in their own box at 92.<\/p>\n
That is why Carrick does not appear alarmed. The numbers point to adjustment rather than upheaval, although the results have yet to settle into consistency.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time United have been here. Their previous five-point start came in 2014-15, when Louis van Gaal arrived after David Moyes\u2019 brief spell ended and expectations rose around a new era. The club had reinforced heavily with Ander Herrera, Luke Shaw, \u00c1ngel Di Mar\u00eda, Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind and Radamel Falcao, but the early weeks were slow. A home loss to Swansea City, away draws with Sunderland and Burnley, and a shock Carabao Cup exit to MK Dons set the tone.<\/p>\n
United did recover. Di Mar\u00eda inspired a first league win against Queens Park Rangers, before an extraordinary collapse against Leicester City ended in a 5-3 defeat after the team had led 3-1. Van Gaal\u2019s side later pieced together two separate runs of six straight league wins and finished fourth, though they never properly threatened the title.<\/p>\n
The broader record shows that a low total after five games is not always decisive. United have often recovered, even from modest starts, and only one perfect five-from-five return has been achieved across 35 Premier League seasons. The opening month matters, but it rarely tells the full story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United\u2019s five-point start mirrors a past low, but history suggests the campaign is far from defined yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,179],"tags":[1836,1162],"class_list":["post-20186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-manchester-united","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}