United top the table in unwanted statistic over the last five years, confirming fans worst fears – The Times

Manchester United fans have frequently complained that their team has been let down by persistent injuries to key players. Fan anger Whilst all football fans will claim this, recent research appears to suggest that Manchester United supporters have more reason to be frustrated than others. This season has already seen Lisandro Martinez, Harry Maguire and Benjamin Sesko miss significant game time due to injury. Even though this season has seen a general decline in the number of minutes missed due to injuries, this could also be attributed to the fact that United are playing significantly fewer minutes, with no European football and having been knocked out of the Carabao Cup in August. Injury woes The Times reports that the “Old Trafford club have suffered 399 injuries in the past five seasons at an enormous cost of about £154.5m.” The report adds that “Manchester United have had the worst injury record in the Premier League over the past five years” according to new research. What’s more, “the club had the highest number of injuries of any club in the top flight in three of the past five seasons” according to a report carried out by the insurance group Howden. Even though last season was an improvement, the club still finished third behind Brighton and Hove Albion and Arsenal. There was not just an impact on the pitch but also off it last season. A 15th place finish also saw the Red Devils pay the second highest amount in wages to injured players in the 2024-2025 season. United also had the highest number of injuries in the league during the 2020-21, 2022-23, and 2023-24 seasons. Impressively, the Red Devils still managed to finish second in 2021 and third in 2023. Highest cost To make matters worse, United have averaged around eighty injuries a year and have “incurred the highest injury cost figure of any individual club over the last five years.” When taking over the club, Sir Jim Ratcliffe identified the club’s poor fitness levels as a major problem, and both Gary O’Driscoll, the head of sports medicine, and senior doctor Jim Moxon left the club earlier this year. Injury stats over previous five seasons Amount of injuriesAverage per seasonTotal costIn comparison to rest of league 399Almost 80£154.5million1st Source: The Times Featured image Julian Finney via Getty Images The Peoples Person has been one of the world’s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social Alex Browne Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Alex has a Master’s degree from Queen’s University Belfast and La Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. Having lived in the country since 2011, Alex is The Peoples Person’s Spanish football expert and is fluent in both Spanish and Catalan. He dreams of witnessing a United captain triumphantly hoisting the Premier League and Champions League trophy in the air once more.