It's been talked about ad nauseam but Manchester United's struggles in the last calendar year are pretty impressive given the size of the club. The Premier League season started just a couple of weeks ago and that brought new opportunity and promise for every club, including Manchester United.

A New Season

To open the season, United had a friendly matchup in the small club of Brighton & Hove Albion. That did not go according to plan and the first match of the 2022-23 season in Old Trafford stadium ended in a 2-1 loss. Not a great start but certainly not dire.

Next up was Brentford, another smaller club that finished 13th in the league last season. A pretty straightforward match on paper for United. What no one expected was a complete dismantling of United by Brentford in the form of a 4-0 drubbing with all four goals scored in the first 35 minutes.

Foreboding Feelings

That second loss dropped Manchester United to the bottom of the table, 20th of 20, with the worst goal differential and two losses. Granted, it is just two matches into the season so things are so far from over, but given the last year it should give fans pause.

Manchester United has a 2022-23 payroll of £202,785,000, £20 million over the second highest team in Chelsea. Their two losses to start the season were to the 14th and 19th highest payroll teams in the Premier League. Brighton clocks in at just over £37.5 million, or almost 5.5 times less than United. Brentford is its own story entirely.

Brentford vs. Ronaldo

Getting beat 4-0 by anyone is tough to swallow but even more so when the victor has the lowest payroll in the Premier League. Cristiano Ronaldo, regarded as one of the best players ever, makes £26,800,000 for the season, over £10 million more than the entire Brentford roster combined. To make matters worse, he's not the only one, as there are four players that make more than all of Brentford and they obviously were severely outplayed in their match on Saturday.

The four players that scored against the obscenely expensive United defense are Josh Dasilva, Mathias Jensen, Ben Mee and Bryan Mbeumo.

• That group makes around a reported £3 million, but Mee's contract terms weren't announced so let's assume he's getting £1 million on his own.

• That puts the four goals at a price of around £4 million.

• The goalkeeper that they got past four times, David De Gea, is being paid £19,500,000.

As already mentioned, it's two games into the season. A lot can happen and United could go on a tear to finish in the top-3 of the league after their second worst finish in PL history last season. But the team that gave up the most goals and had the fewest wins in their PL history, remains largely unchanged and it looks that way. They dropped out of taking part in the Champions League and it's looking like they may not be competitive at all this year but we'll see if that proves to be true.

In any case, it looks like Manchester City really pulled one over on United last year, threatening to sign Ronaldo, a United legend, and forcing the hand of the Red Devils to shell out a bunch of money for an aging star.

Mound Visit

Saints Sports Network is a Christian group that brings you interesting sports coverage. Our name comes from Ephesians 2:18-21 where it notes that all Christians are saints in God's eyes. Therefore we are saints who write about sports but also want to make sure to share the Gospel. That's where Mound Visit comes into play because we all need a visit to the mound from God in good times and bad to recenter our lives and trust in him. We'll do that by highlighting a Bible verse for you to think and pray about in each newsletter that you receive from us.