Two teams that have started the season with disappointing results meet in the Premier League at Turf Moor on Saturday. We look ahead to the game with our data-powered Burnley vs Manchester United prediction and preview.
Burnley vs Manchester United: The Quick Hits
- Manchester United are predicted to win this game, with the Opta supercomputer giving them a 46.8% chance of victory at Burnley.
- Burnley have won just one of their last 15 Premier League games against Man Utd.
- Erik ten Hag’s side have lost four of their opening six competitive games in 2023-24, which is their worst record since 1986-87 at this stage of a season.
Match Preview
Manchester United will be looking to improve on their poor start to the 2023-24 Premier League season when they make the trip to Turf Moor to play Vincent Kompany’s Burnley on Saturday night.
United have lost three Premier League games already – it’s their most defeats within the first five games of a league campaign since 1989-90 under Alex Ferguson (also three). The last time they lost four of their first six in a league campaign was back in 1986-87 (W1 D1 L4), a season that they ended in 11th place.
Burnley won their first point of 2023-24 against Nottingham Forest on MD 5 but are still one of five teams without a Premier League victory this term ahead of the weekend, alongside Luton Town, Bournemouth, Everton and Sheffield United. Burnley have, however, played one game fewer than 18 of the other 19 Premier League sides as their MD 2 clash with Luton Town was rescheduled for two weeks’ time.
Two-goal top scorer Lyle Foster will be missing for Burnley in this match as he serves the first of a three-match suspension following his red card at Forest last week. Zeki Amdouni, who scored their goal in the 1-1 draw on Monday, will be hoping to do the damage again; he’s attempted the most shots in the competition for Burnley this season alongside Foster (seven).
Marcus Rashford has taken eight more shots than any other Manchester United player in the Premier League this season, but he’s only scored one from his 23 attempts. He’ll be looking to add to that tally in this match, fuelled by chief creator Bruno Fernandes, who has created twice as many chances as any other Man Utd player in league competition this season (16).
André Onana has endured a tough start to life at Manchester United following his move from Serie A giants Inter Milan in the summer. The Cameroon goalkeeper has now conceded 14 goals from 39 shots on target faced (36%), including a glaring error in their 4-3 UCL loss at Bayern Munich on Wednesday night.
Rasmus Højlund scored his first Man Utd goal in that game and will be expected to lead the line again on Saturday. Casemiro netted twice in Munich and will also likely retain his place versus Burnley, but Erik ten Hag looks set to be missing a host of first-team players again on Saturday. Defenders Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire and Tyrell Malacia are all out, while the trio of Sofyan Amrabat, Mason Mount and Raphael Varane are fitness doubts. Antony and Jadon Sancho remain absent.
Burnley vs Manchester United Head-to-Head
As expected, Burnley don’t have the best record against United in the Premier League. The Clarets have won just one of their last 15 league games against them (D5 L9), with that being a shock 2-0 win at Old Trafford in January 2020.
At Turf Moor, however, Burnley are without a win in seven consecutive matches versus Man Utd, losing five of these (D2) and scoring just once in this run – Jay Rodriguez’s goal in a 1-1 draw in February 2022. Burnley’s only Premier League home win over the Red Devils came in August 2009, which was also their first-ever Premier League meeting. They were 1-0 victors thanks to a Robbie Blake goal in the first half.
Just two of Burnley’s 11 Premier League goals against Manchester United have come at Turf Moor (18%). Of all teams to score at least 10 times against an opponent in the competition, this is the lowest percentage to be scored in home games.
Man Utd defeated Burnley in the EFL Cup last season, with the 2-0 victory the last competitive meeting between the two sides. Christian Eriksen and Marcus Rashford scored the goals in the fourth-round tie, with United eventually winning the competition thanks to their 2-0 win over Newcastle United in the final at Wembley in February.
United have a decent record against promoted opposition in the Premier League. They’ve lost just one of their last 24 games against such teams (W17 D6), going down 4-1 at Watford in November 2021, the last match of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s reign as boss. They’ve won the last eight of those in a row, their longest streak since a run of 12 between May 2011 and March 2013.
Recent Form
Burnley have lost their last five Premier League home games, including all three this season (versus Manchester City, Tottenham and Aston Villa) by an aggregate score of 11-3. They’ve never lost their first four at home in a single league campaign before, and the last Premier League side to do so were Newcastle in 2018-19.
Their poor start hasn’t been helped by ill-discipline, either. Burnley have received a red card in three of their last six Premier League matches (Matt Lowton vs. Aston Villa in May 2022, Anass Zaroury vs. Man City in August, Lyle Foster vs. Forest on Monday), one more than they received in their previous 200 top-flight games combined (two).
Following the midweek loss to Bundesliga club Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League, Manchester United have lost as many as four of their opening six games of a season in all competitions for the first time since 1986-87 under Ron Atkinson – the season in which Alex Ferguson would later take charge of the club. They also lost their seventh competitive game that season. In defence, Man Utd have have conceded three or more goals in three consecutive games for the first time since December 1978 under Dave Sexton.
Between February 2020 and September 2021, United went unbeaten for an English Football League record 29 consecutive away games. Since their first game after this run, they’ve lost 18 times on the road in the Premier League (W12 D7), with only West Ham (22), Wolves (21) and Everton (21) losing more among ever-present sides.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Burnley vs Manchester United Prediction
The Opta supercomputer is predicting a Manchester United win in this match, which would ease the increasing pressure on manager Ten Hag following four defeats in their opening six games of the season.
The Red Devils won 46.8% of pre-match simulations, with home team Burnley winning just under a quarter of them (24.9%). There is a 28.3% chance of a draw, and Burnley picking up their second point of the season.
Looking at the latest Opta supercomputer predictions for the 2023-24 Premier League season, Manchester United finished inside the top four of the league table in just 9.0% of the 10,000 simulations ahead of this match. That’s dramatically down from 63.2% in pre-season, falling behind teams such as West Ham (9.8%), Aston Villa (10.8%), Tottenham (31.4%), Brighton (38.4%) and Newcastle United (21.3%). As it stands, their average finish in the simulations was ninth.
Burnley are one of the favourites for relegation from the Premier League, according to the Opta supercomputer, with Kompany’s side finishing inside the bottom three in 41.7% of the current simulations. This is lower than Everton (54.0%), Sheffield United (65.4%) and Luton (72.8%), however.
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