Most Manchester United fans expect the team to qualify for the Europa League next season as a minimum requirement to have a successful season.
The Red Devils have just experienced their most challenging season in decades as they finished 15th in the league.
United also failed to score goals, finding the back of the net a paltry 44 times in 38 matches.
What’s more, they reached the final of the Europa League but narrowly lost out 0-1 to Tottenham Hotspur to go trophyless for the first time since 2022.
Head coach Ruben Amorim has already been told by the board that next year must go a lot better than this one and United fans certainly agree.
The Athletic surveyed “self-described Manchester United fans from June 2-3, 2025” and asked them the question, what would be the minimum achievement next season to be considered a success?
39.8% of fans asked claimed that qualifying for the Europa League would be a minimum requirement for next season. This would mean finishing sixth in the Premier League table or winning the FA Cup.
36.1% of fans are dreaming of Champions League qualification, which would mean a top four finish or quite possibly fifth place like this season.
13.9% fans are less demanding and claim that getting into the Conference League would be a success. This could be achieved by finishing seventh or winning the Carabao cup.
Therefore, just under 90% fans expect European qualification and subsequently, a much better league performance.
This is understandable considering United have finished 8th and 15th in the last two seasons and will largely only have to play once a week owing to the fact they won’t be in European competition.
Interestingly, only 9.3% of fans would view winning a trophy as a success and a miniscule 0.9% would see reaching a final as a positive.
This is possibly due to the fact United have won the FA Cup and Carabao cup in recent seasons and also lost the finals of the FA Cup in 2023 and the Europa League last season.
Featured image Alex Livesey via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
