The unbelievable Man Utd stat that Arsenal would never have tolerated

Five games into the new Premier League season, Manchester United sit 12th in the table, have won just once and are still waiting for their first clean sheet.

Another underwhelming draw at Fulham was the latest instalment in what already feels like a familiar cycle under Michael Carrick.

Particularly when you look at the back four. United started at Craven Cottage with Diogo Dalot, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw — precisely the same back four that started their infamous 4-0 defeat to Brentford way back in August 2022.

In fact, they’ve used that exact combination in three of their five league outings this season.

Shaw dates back to Louis Van Gaal’s time at the club. Dalot was signed by Jose Mourinho. Maguire arrived under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. And Martinez was an Erik ten Hag pet project from Ajax.

The club may have spent heavily elsewhere, but there is an increasingly difficult question hanging over this particular part of the rebuild: why are they still here?

It’s Brentford. It can happen. Manchester United weren’t the first or last ‘big six’ team to suffer a chastening defeat away to the Bees. Tottenham and Chelsea have both lost there 3-0 this season.

In fact, in Brentford’s first-ever Premier League game, a strike partnership of Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbeumo bullied Arsenal’s backline. Mikel Arteta’s Gunners were left shellshocked that Friday night at the newly-opened Brentford Community Stadium.

Of their starting XI from that 2-0 defeat, only Ben White remains at the club. And he was a young player, signed for £50million that summer, making his debut that night. He remains a useful member of the squad, but he’s been pushed out of Arteta’s favoured XI and has barely played at centre-back since that first season.

What are the rest of their backline doing nowadays? Kieran Tierney, now back at Celtic. Pablo Mari, unattached, was last seen making a handful of appearances for Al Hilal. Calum Chambers is at Cardiff City.

Fast forward twelve months and Arsenal’s defence had been transformed, with Gabriel Magalhaes partnering William Saliba for the opener of their 2022-23 campaign. That’s now a foundational pillar of the best team in the country.

As they ought to, Manchester United appear to be looking at Arteta’s Arsenal as an example of ‘best practice’ and are implementing some of the same ideas.

They’ve brought back a former trophy-winning club captain, a former midfielder with an innate reading of the game who understands the culture of the club.

It remains to be seen whether Michael Carrick has the tactical chops of Arteta, or will be given the same time to make mistakes and learn on the job, but that question will be academic if he isn’t given the tools to succeed.

We very much doubt that Arteta would still be in the job, now the Premier League’s longest-serving manager, if Arsenal had taken a “they’re good, honest lads” approach with the likes of Mari and Tierney.

It was obvious that night in Brentford that Arsenal’s players weren’t good enough. So they were promptly replaced.

The same was true of Manchester United the following August, their backline left just as horribly exposed by that same front two of Toney and Mbeumo. Simply not up to scratch when faced with a quality attack.

Needless to say, Dalot, Maguire, Martinez and Shaw are capable Premier League footballers on their day.

United actually recovered to finish third that season. They finished third again last term. Three of the same back four started their 2023 League Cup final victory over Newcastle, while Martinez has started every one of the three final wins United have mustered in the past nine years.

But they’ve also seen the club register its two lowest placings and points tallies of the Premier League era; the only instance in modern times that they’ve failed to qualify for the Champions League in back-to-back seasons.

Third place, nowhere near a title challenge, but perhaps the odd domestic cup is the absolute ceiling of what these defenders can achieve.

That lack of standards, that scarcity of ambition, simply would not have been tolerated by Arteta’s Arsenal. The ruthlessness with which they moved on their inadequate players is something sorely lacking at Old Trafford.

In fairness, United have not been completely inactive on the defensive front. To draw further parallels with present-day Arsenal, Leny Yoro was viewed as every bit as exciting a Ligue 1 prospect as Saliba.

Beating Real Madrid to his signature was a genuine coup. Ayden Heaven has also shown potential since making the step-up from the academy.

But the two young centre-backs have disastrous records when starting. They were shocking together in the League Cup defeat to Brighton, and there doesn’t appear to be a wider structure or culture around them in which they can learn, improve and adapt.

Playing alongside Martinez or Maguire clearly isn’t helping them.

United will surely finally turn their attention to this glaring weakness next summer. That certainly seems to be the plan, having rebuilt the attack last year and invested heavily in midfield this year.

But overhauling the squad in three separate instalments is a bizarre way to build a football team. There is no cohesion in it, and there is a good reason this isn’t standard practice.

And what in the meantime? Third, at a push? An FA Cup if they’re lucky? At this point, falling out of the European places again seems just as plausible. And can anyone really be surprised?

Four years on from that 4-0 defeat to Brentford, this is simply what United are with Dalot, Martinez, Maguire and Shaw.

By Nestor Watach