Manchester United’s 4-3 defeat to Chelsea on Thursday night extended a chaotic defensive season which has seen them give up the most shots in the Premier League since the turn of the year.
Here, the PA news agency looks at United’s record.
Shots fired
Having gone 3-2 up through Alejandro Garnacho in the 67th minute, United allowed Chelsea to have the final 10 shots of Thursday’s madcap game and paid the price as Cole Palmer scored in the 10th and 11th minutes of stoppage time to complete his hat-trick and win the game.
That took Chelsea’s total attempts for the match to 28 and meant Erik ten Hag’s side have faced 224 Premier League shots in 2024 – eight more than any other club.
Brentford (216), Sheffield United (206), West Ham (205) and Luton (201) are the only other teams to face over 200 in that time, with only the Hammers of that quartet currently outside the league’s bottom six.
Over the whole season United have faced 525 shots, third most in the top flight behind the rock-bottom Blades on 554 and 18th-placed Luton on 531.
The chaos at Chelsea followed Saturday’s dramatic finish against Brentford, when Mason Mount gave United a 96th-minute lead but they remarkably conceded an equaliser to Kristoffer Ajer three minutes later.
Redemption for Onana
Andre Onana faced criticism early in the season after a succession of errors – but United’s defensive record in the context of the shots they have faced paints the Cameroon goalkeeper’s contributions in a positive light.
Having replaced the long-serving David De Gea in the summer, Onana is ever-present for United this season apart from January’s 4-2 FA Cup win over Newport, when he was at the Africa Cup of Nations and Altay Bayindir deputised.
Only Luton’s Thomas Kaminski has made more saves in this season’s Premier League, 118 to 114, while Onana’s eight clean sheets rank joint second behind Arsenal keeper David Raya’s 11.
United have conceded 44 league goals and, while that gives them a negative goal difference having scored just 43, only four teams have conceded fewer – title-chasing trio Liverpool (28), Arsenal (24) and Manchester City (29) and Everton (42).
That is a significant improvement on a Champions League campaign that saw United finish bottom of their group, Onana conceding four goals to Bayern Munich in September and FC Copenhagen in November and three in each meeting with Galatasaray.
