Premier League Predictions & best bets: New season, same old woeful Man Utd, Jones Knows tips up 14/1 treble

Along with last season being their lowest-ever Premier League finish, they also finished up with a negative goal difference for the first time. They conceded 58 league goals, their worst season defensively for 45 years and faced the second most shots of any team (667) – only relegated Sheffield Utd (678) faced more.

A change of manager will bring new hope though. Wait – checks notes – Erik ten Hag is still Manchester United manager? What is this sorcery? You may be forgiven for being unaware that Adama Traore plays for Fulham – he played just 364 minutes last season.

But the foul-winning machine has looked fit and firing in pre-season, playing 89 minutes of Fulham’s win over Hoffenheim and could be ripe for some Marco Silva love to get his career back on track. This is a player that in the four seasons between 2019-2023 managed to get a player carded every 132 minutes of football from a 7,797-minute sample size with the backdrop of a 2.8 fouls won ratio per 90 minutes. Ridiculous numbers. Two managers with very different trajectories are set to taste Premier League management for the first time.

Kieran McKenna isn’t going to change for anyone. He’ll look to be expansive with the ball to get his two key wide men in Leif Davis and Wes Burns into dangerous areas. It should play straight into Liverpool’s hands here though, who will be able to create big moments – and when you have someone of the ilk of Diogo Jota in your team, those big moments turn into goals.