Manchester United’s 2025–26 Premier League season got off to the worst possible start results wise—but Ruben Amorim will take away plenty of positives from his side’s 1-0 defeat to Arsenal at Old Trafford.
United laboured to their lowest finish of the Premier League era last season, unable to turn around a disastrous start that cost Erik ten Hag his job as manager and saw Amorim drafted in after tremendous success in Portugal with Sporting CP.
Signings have been made over the summer to address the club’s woes, but there’s still work to do in terms of getting players off the books—doing so may allow further strengthening to take place, likely in central midfield if at all possible.
Here, Arsenal were the favourites to pick up three points, and they took away what they came for thanks to Riccardo Calafiori’s 13th minute winner. But the runners-up for the last three Premier League seasons weren’t the dominant force in a game United will feel they had the better of for much of the contest.
The main positive for United was the displays of their new signings Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha—both are huge upgrades on what Amorim was working with last season and should do plenty of good in the coming weeks and months.
