Manchester United have ended a Premier League season with a negative goal difference for the first time in the competition’s 32-year history.
The Red Devils won 2-0 at Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday but still finished the 2023/24 campaign having conceded one goal more than they scored.
This is only the sixth time in Premier League history that United have finished a campaign with a goal difference below +25.
Meanwhile, the club’s five worst Premier League seasons ever based on goal difference have all come in the last 11 years.
Manchester United’s worst Premier League seasons based on goal difference
- 2023/24 season: -1 goal difference
- 2021/22 season: 0 goal difference
- 2018/19 season: +11 goal difference
- 2015/16 season: +14 goal difference
- 2022/23 season: +15 goal difference
- 2013/14 season +21 goal difference
Manchester United’s best Premier League seasons based on goal difference
- 2007/08 season: +58 goal difference (champions)
- 2009/10 season: +58 goal difference (finished 2nd)
- 2006/07 season: +56 goal difference (champions)
- 2011/12 season: +56 goal difference (finished 2nd)
- 1999/00 season: +52 goal difference (champions)
- 1994/95 season: +49 goal difference (finished 2nd)
The best goal difference ever recorded by a Premier League team is +79 as achieved by Manchester City’s class of 2017/18.
Going into this weekend Derby County held the record for the worst of all time, having ended the 2007/08 season with -69.
Derby now share that record of -69 with Sheffield United, who lost 3-0 at home to Tottenham in their final game of a dismal 2023/24 campaign.