Manchester United’s current effort marks only the ninth time in the Big Six era that one of its teams has mustered seven points or fewer from the first six games of a Premier League season, so it seems to make sense to have a look at what happened next on those previous occasions and, for no particular reason, specifically what happened to the managers.
First of all, we’ll need a working definition of the Big Six Era. Scholars may never truly settle on a final answer that satisfies everyone here, but for us it’s the start of the 2010/11 season. Fight that in the comments if you like, but here’s our reasoning.
Primarily and what feels importantly, it was the first season those six clubs occupied the top six spots.
Spurs had just muscled in on the old Big Four by qualifying for the Champions League at the expense of a Man City team in their origin story era.
In a table compiled from the start of that season up to this very day, there is a 230-point gap between sixth-placed Spurs (968 points from 538 games) and seventh-placed Everton (738 points from 538 games) with Newcastle, West Ham, Southampton and Crystal Palace the only other teams even to reach 500 Premier League points in that time.
Also, Leicester are the only team outside the gilded six with a positive goal difference across that timeframe, managing an aggregate of plus 33. Spurs, unarguably the cruddiest member of the six, have a goal difference of +316.
You don’t have to like the idea of the Big Six, but it’s not just a made-up thing; however hilariously bad some of them might sometimes be, they have been very clearly the best six teams overall across what is now approaching 15 years.
Your Leicesters, your Villas, your Newcastles and even the West Hams of this world have all had their moments, sure, but that Big Six isn’t so entrenched for no reason. So that’s why it’s their sh*tty starts over that time period we’re interested in for absolutely no topical reason whatsoever. Okay? Okay.
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Liverpool 2012/13 – 5pts
P6 W1 D2 L3 GD-3
Perhaps the season that provides the closest thing to an encouraging available blueprint for Ten Hag. An even worse start that did at least turn out to be the start of, well, something.
The manager: Brendan Rodgers
Replaced Kenny Dalglish after he had led Liverpool to a lowly eighth in his only full season after returning to the club. Rodgers made a disastrous start but did end up constructing one of the great ‘almost’ teams in Barclays history the very next year.
What happened: Liverpool won none of Rodgers’ first five league games in charge. He, like Roy Hodgson before him (more on him later), was handed an undeniably tough start to an undeniably tough gig.
Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United were all on the fixture list within those first five games, but that’s really all the more reason not to make life even harder for yourself by losing 3-0 at West Brom on the opening day.
A first win finally came via a trademark Luis Suarez-inspired thrashing of Norwich in late September.
What happened next: The 5-2 win at Norwich turned out to be the start of an eight-match unbeaten run in the league that would only end with a 2-1 defeat at Tottenham. Sure, there were five draws in that unbeaten run, but it was something and did the job of lifting Liverpool out of a mortifying spot in the bottom three to a merely embarrassing one in mid-table.
Rodgers’ side then spent several months really leaning into the mid-table lifestyle. It can be a tempting one for clubs where things don’t mean more, but it’s never going to fly for long at Liverpool. So after a run that included classically mid-table things like 4-0 wins over Fulham and Wigan and 3-0 wins over Sunderland to go with 3-1 defeats at Stoke and at home to Villa, Rodgers shrewdly decided to provide some tangible evidence he could do more.
Liverpool lost just one of their last 12 league games, with notable wins along the way including a 3-2 against Spurs and a 6-0 battering of Newcastle.
It was a run of results that lifted Liverpool all the way from ninth to the dizzy heights of seventh, but it was a glimpse of what was to come.
Did the manager survive? He did, and came within one infamous slip of winning the title the following season.
Chelsea 2023/24 – 5pts
P6 W1 D2 L3 GD -1
A genuinely impressive effort to outdo even the legendary 2015/16 effort under Jose Mourinho.
The manager: Mauricio Pochettino
In a break with Barclays norm, for once it was Chelsea who appointed a beloved former Tottenham manager. Turns out it doesn’t really matter which way round you do it, it doesn’t really work.
What happened: A tidy enough opening draw with Liverpool was followed by an alarming defensive performance in a 3-1 defeat at West Ham. Luton were swept aside easily enough before a run of three games without a goal and featuring home defeats to Forest and Villa ramped up the early pressure on Pochettino.
What happened next: Cole Palmer, essentially. Chelsea three of their next five – most notably the 4-1 nonsense against Tottenham’s 0-7-1 formation – and then drew a thriller against Man City 4-4.
There were still some notable bumps in the road – Chelsea would lose four of the next six after that City caper – but there were encouraging signs to be seen of Pochettino managing to get a handle on the eclectic and expensive squad that had been assembled for him.
Chelsea ended the season with a sprint finish, losing only one of their final 14 games and winning the last five straight to snatch what had seemed for most of the season an unlikely top-six finish.
Did the manager survive? Yes and no. Pochettino saw out the season but went no further. It looked an absurd decision at the time, given the way Chelsea had ended the campaign, but they’ve started this one pretty well haven’t they? So maybe it was a good call, who knows. Hard to currently say anything with great certainty about that bunch of dafties.
Liverpool 2010/11 – 6pts
P6 W1 D3 L2 GD-3 Pts 6
It was one of the more forlorn Liverpool seasons, this. As well as a league season that flirted at times with genuine disaster, they went out of the FA Cup in the third round, the League Cup in the third round, and the Europa League in the last 16 after a group stage in which they won only two of their six games.
We have a huge amount of time for Dirk Kuyt, but any season he’s your top scorer is one where something has gone wrong. What specifically went wrong here, of course, was selling Fernando Torres and replacing him with Andy Carroll. Although in the same transfer window Liverpool did also sign Luis Suarez, which would become important later.
But back to that start.
The manager: Roy Hodgson
He was doomed from the outset, really, but looking back he really didn’t make life easy for himself either.
What happened: Hodgson and Liverpool were admittedly handed a tough start, but proceeded to just about as badly with it as it’s possible to imagine. Defeats to both Manchester clubs left United with just one win from their opening six games – and that an entirely unconvincing 1-0 success against West Brom.
What happened next: Six points from six games would turn out to be something of a high point for Hodgson’s Reds. It became six points from eight games after successive defeats at home to Blackpool(!) and away at Everton(!!)
A trio of autumn victories over Blackburn, Bolton and Chelsea at least lifted them out of the bottom three and into mid-table, but it never felt like a corner truly being turned.
Further defeats followed against Stoke, Spurs, Newcastle and Wolves before the year was out, with Liverpool seeing in 2011 from a lowly 12th.
Did the manager survive? Absolutely not. The first league defeat of 2011 – 3-1 at Blackburn – would prove to be Hodgson’s last as Kenny Dalglish came riding to the rescue.
There was another defeat against Blackpool to endure, but Liverpool would win 10 of their last 16 Premier League games to clamber back to respectability from a long, long way back. Although closing the season with defeats to Spurs and Villa saw them miss out on a European spot.
Arsenal 2011/12 – 7pts
P6 W2 D1 L3 GD-5
Perhaps surprisingly, 2011/12 is Arsenal’s only contribution to this list. Very surprisingly, it is north London’s only contribution to this list as Spurs join Man City in being the only Big Six teams to have snagged at least eight points from the first six games of every season since 2010/11 (You’ll never sing that).
The manager: Arsene Wenger
This was Wenger very much hitting his stride in that prickly ‘top four is better than a trophy’ phase, one that lasted roughly nine years and mainly seemed to involve him wearing longer and longer coats with trickier and trickier zips. Pre-season was dominated by the protracted sale of Cesc Fabregas back to Barcelona, which may go some way to explaining the iffy beginning. That and those bastard zips.
What happened: The season began with a bad-tempered goalless draw at Newcastle and then a 2-0 home defeat to Liverpool.
Arsenal would finally register their first two league goals of the campaign the following weekend at Old Trafford, but surprise, surprise, the biased media with their agenda decided instead to focus on the eight goals Arsenal conceded.
They did manage a first win in their fourth game, against Swansea, but then promptly shipped another bunch of goals in losing 4-3 at Blackburn. The six games were rounded out by a 3-0 win over Bolton.
What happened next: The seventh game brought a fourth defeat, and at Tottenham to make things worse, but the response was emphatic. As was often the case with later-era Wenger, Arsenal only truly came alive when the title was safely out of reach but that all-important top-four finish was imperilled. Arsenal won seven and drew one of their next eight games and moved into their natural fourth-place habitat for the first time with admirable neatness, at the precise midpoint of the season after 19 games and on New Year’s Eve. You can’t teach that.
A seven-match winning run in February and March – including a 5-2 mauling of Spurs and 7-1 demolition of Blackburn left Arsenal in position to claim third. They duly did so by one point from Spurs, which proved vital as Chelsea’s Champions League success dumped Arsenal’s local rivals into the Europa League.
Did the manager survive? Of course he did. Wenger was very much part of the large-coated Arsenal furniture by this stage.
Man United 2020/21 – 7pts
P6 W2 D1 L3 GD -5
So yeah, it turns out than when Manchester United have a bad start, they have a very specific blueprint. It’s two wins and three defeats in the first six games, that’s how they do things there.
The manager: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
What happened: First of all, a global pandemic had happened. There is legit mitigation in that for everyone involved, because those fanless games in cavernous stadiums were eerie and unusual. Easy to forget just how strange a time it all was, but if you need a hint then remember people were talking with some degree of seriousness about whether Everton could sustain a title challenge.
Nobody wondered that about Solskjaer’s United who slumped to 15th in the table after a six-game start that included an opening-day defeat at home to Palace and an absurd 6-1 defeat to Spurs at Old Trafford. A third defeat in four home games against Arsenal (they did manage a point against Chelsea) left United in the mire.
What happened next: Here’s where the actual good news exists for Ten Hag, if you’re minded to look for it. Given the obvious similarities between this start and the current one – right down to making a Spurs team that arrived at Old Trafford short on confidence look like peak Barcelona – the fact that what followed was a 13-game unbeaten run offers some hope for what comes next.
Let’s not dwell too long on the fact that unbeaten run ended with a 2-1 home defeat to Sheffield United but instead consider that this was followed in the very next home game by a 9-0 win over Southampton. Having lost three of their first six, United would in all go on to lose only another three of the remaining 32 to finish (a distant) second to Manchester City in the final reckoning.
Did the manager survive? Saw out the season in fine style and was duly rewarded with a new three-year contract. The doubters had been proven thoroughly and compellingly wrong. Until November, when he was sacked after a run of five defeats in seven league games including a 4-2 defeat at Leicester, a 5-0 home thrashing from Liverpool and, decisively, a truly mortifying 4-1 defeat at Watford.
Chelsea 2015/16 – 7pts
P6 W2 D1 L3 GD-3
By some margin the weirdest ever Premier League season. Leicester famously won it, but a glance down the table now reveals that is only the very start of what looks to 2024 eyes like it could only be a work of fiction. There’s Spurs finishing third in the two-horse race, of course, their eye-catching commitment to banter masking a pair of embarrassing bottle jobs from Arsenal and City.
But it’s also a table that features Southampton in sixth and West Ham seventh, both above Liverpool who finished only one place higher than Stoke. And beehind them all, bizarrely and incongruously, came defending champions Chelsea.
The manager: Jose Mourinho
This was peak third-year, destroy-and-exit Mourinho. Having delivered the title in 2015, he contrived to stink out the joint in what was for modern-day Chelsea unprecedented fashion the following season. They hadn’t finished outside the top six since 1996 and only once since 2002 had they even been outside the top four.
What happened: Mourinho’s Chelsea started the 2015/16 campaign – as defending champions, remember – with three defeats in their first five games. Losing at Man City is one thing, but the successive defeats to Palace and Everton were a bit more vexing.
The six-game block actually ended on a positive note, thanks to a 2-0 home win over Arsenal. Perhaps it would all be fine after all.
What happened next: It was not fine after all. Chelsea actually got, if anything, worse. Which has not been the case for most teams here. They lost four of the next six against such Barclays heavyweights as Southampton, West Ham, Stoke and Liverpool. Again, remember this is the 2016 bizarroworld we’re talking about where all those teams are – for varyingly surprising reasons – mid-table fodder.
Another pair of successive defeats to Bournemouth and Leicester left Chelsea in 16th place after 16 games and in genuine danger of a relegation fight.
Did the manager survive? He did not. That was the end of Mourinho and Chelsea, with Guus Hiddink brought in for one of the more dramatic ship-steadying acts ever required at a Big Six vessel. He pretty much smashed it, too, with a 15-match unbeaten run lifting Chelsea at least into the safety of mid-table.
Antonio Conte arrived in the summer and duly delivered the title in his first season to complete one of the more entertaining three-year runs of any Barclays team.
Liverpool 2014/15 – 7pts
P6 W2 D1 L3 GD-2
Having survived one disastrous start and followed it by almost delivering that elusive first Premier League title to Anfield, Brendan Rodgers was back making a bollocks of things at the start of 2014/15.
The manager: Brendan Rodgers
This was peak Brendan. This was the great man at the absolute height of his ‘Brentan’ powers. Always a man who if he were chocolate would eat himself, the previous season’s intoxicating endeavour had left him more pleased with himself than ever before.
Having chastised Spurs the previous year for failing to muster a title fight after spending £100m on seven players to replace Gareth Bale, Rodgers proceeded to spend £117m on 10 players to replace Luis Suarez and… well you can guess if you don’t already know.
What happened: To begin with, actually not too bad. There were wins over Southampton and Spurs within the first three games to hint at another title tilt in the offing with that shiny new squad of players. Alas, that would be followed by successive defeats to Villa and West Ham, and then a home draw with Everton.
It wasn’t quite on a par with previous starts that had left Liverpool in the actual relegation zone, but it was still all a bit sh*t after the efforts of the previous season.
What happened next: Liverpool twice climbed as high as fifth, first briefly after back-to-back wins in October and more significantly during a run of 10 wins and two draws in 12 games from December into March.
But a run of five defeats in their last nine would see them overtaken at the last by a Spurs team they had beaten home and away.
Did the manager survive? Despite also making a bollocks of the Champions League, infamously sending out a reserve side at Real Madrid and ending up dropping into the Europa League only to be instantly eliminated from that competition too: yes.
Rodgers would indeed see out the season, steering Liverpool to the semi-finals of both the League Cup and FA Cup.
But the man who survived two slow starts at Liverpool could not survive a third. It was eight points from the first six games in 2015/16 this time; and 12 points from eight games when he was eventually dismissed following another 1-1 draw with Everton, to be replaced by some German fella.
Man United 2013/14 – 7pts
P6 W2 D1 L3 GD 0
Look, isn’t that helpful? Another Manchester United side that won two, drew one and lost three of the first six games. Surely this again must provide excellent guidance as to what might happen next?
That’s good news for everyone, with the possible exception of Erik Ten Hag.
The manager: David Moyes. Ah.
What happened: All seemed well for Sir Ferg’s anointed successor as the season began with a 4-1 win at Swansea, Danny Welbeck and Robin van Persie helping themselves to two goals each. A goalless home draw with Chelsea isn’t catastrophic, but then came the first defeat. It seems almost quaint now to imagine a United crisis being kickstarted by a mere 1-0 defeat to Liverpool, but 2013 was a very different time. United were, lest we forget, reigning champions.
Palace were beaten in their next game, but back-to-back defeats to Manchester City and West Brom set the alarm bells ringing, with the champions slumping to 12th in the table by the time Green Day were awoken from their slumbers.
What happened next: A seven-match unbeaten run, as it goes, with four wins in the next five games lifting United briefly back into the top five.
That, though, was as good as it got. Draws at Cardiff and Spurs were followed by home defeats to Moyes’ old team Everton and Newcastle in December as the nagging doubts about Moyes’ suitability for the assignment grew louder and louder.
Did the manager survive? No, he did not.
A 3-0 home defeat to Liverpool – sounds familiar – was swiftly followed by another against Man City to leave Moyes teetering on the brink and another defeat to Everton proved too much. Moyes was gone as United gave it Giggsy until end of the season. He kept them in the seventh spot to which Moyes had so adroitly steered them.
READ: Man Utd’s post-Ferguson managers ranked: Erik ten Hag in fourth and on the brink
