Manchester United: what has changed

The items a review of every article found still open after the last release are corrected, each with a dated note, and the Manchester City points-deduction scenarios are rerun on our current figures. No club's estimate for this season moves.

• Figures that had fallen behind are brought into line, among them the gap between Crystal Palace and Everton before player trading, 15.2 points, from 15.5.
• Statements of the rule are corrected where they had drifted: the five-year cap applies to contracts signed or extended on or after 12 December 2023, and a loan fee is set first against the player's wages.
• The Manchester City deduction scenarios are rerun: after a 40-point deduction City would be at 85.4%, from 85.6%, and after 55 points they would lose 17 league points in their second season back, from 20.
• Manchester City's appeal of 2 October is recorded in every piece that still gave a deadline.

Also moved:Manchester CityCrystal PalaceEvertonBrightonBrentfordLiverpoolTottenham

We checked every step of the engine against the squad cost rules, clause by clause, and corrected everything public information allows in one release. Contracts signed since December 2023 for more than five years are now capped at five years even for players already on the books, Villa's Super Cup money counts, and the figures for later tests are worked out window by window and restored. Five estimates move, none by more than 0.6 of a point.

• The five-year cap: a contract signed or extended since 12 December 2023 for more than five years is now spread over five years for players who were already on the club's books, as the rule says, not over its full length (Chelsea, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Manchester United).
• The UEFA Super Cup: Aston Villa's €4m for playing the 2026 Super Cup now counts, as the rule says once the amount is known.
• Sunderland: their FA Cup home tie against Stoke City in January 2025 is now evidenced, so they are credited with two home cup matches, not one.
• Figures for later tests: the figures withdrawn earlier on 23 October are worked out window by window and restored.
• What the engine cannot capture from public information is now listed once, with its direction and size, on its own page.
• Every figure an article prints from the engine is now registered and recomputed at each release. The new check found figures in eight more articles that earlier corrections had not carried through; each is corrected, with a note.
• Regulation part 5, which gives each club's distance from a ratio of 60%, is restated on the corrected figures.

What moved: Chelsea 88.6% → 89.1%; Manchester City 73.1% → 73.7%; Aston Villa 74.4% → 74.2%; Manchester United 56.8% → 56.9%; Sunderland 60.8% → 60.6%

Also moved:ChelseaManchester CityAston VillaSunderland

We had averaged each club's profit on player sales over three financial years, but the rule averages the sales made in the six most recent transfer windows, which for the March 2027 test start in February 2024. Sales between February and June 2024 now count, among them several made before the June 2024 deadline of the previous rules, and ten estimates move: Chelsea's to 88.6%, from 92.5%, and Newcastle's to 81.3%, from 84.9%, the largest.

• The period the rule averages: the profit or loss on player sales over the six most recent transfer windows, divided by three, not over three financial years. For the March 2027 test the period starts on 2 February 2024, so sales from then until each club's 2024/25 year began now count.
• Brentford: David Raya's sale to Arsenal, which Brentford booked in June 2024, now counts, and Mark Flekken's sale to Bayer Leverkusen in June 2025 is no longer counted twice.
• Figures for later tests: where an article gives a club's figure for a later year, it is now worked out window by window; where we have not yet done that, the figure is withdrawn while we recheck it.

What moved: Chelsea 92.5% → 88.6%; Newcastle 84.9% → 81.3%; Aston Villa 77.4% → 74.4%; Nottingham Forest 99.3% → 97.6%; Brentford 83.8% → 82.3%; Everton 73.3% → 72.3%; Manchester City 73.8% → 73.1%; Tottenham 80.4% → 80.9%; Leeds 68.6% → 68.3%; Manchester United 56.9% → 56.8%

Also moved:ChelseaNewcastleAston VillaNottingham ForestBrentfordEvertonManchester CityTottenhamLeeds

Players a club has loaned out are now recorded at all twenty clubs, with an allowance for the part of their wages the borrowing club pays. Where a named source says how much the borrower pays, the saving counts in our central figure; where nobody says, it only widens the range. Four central figures move, the largest Nottingham Forest's, from 102.3% to 99.3%.

• A club that loans a player out often stops paying some or all of his wages, which lowers the squad cost the rule counts. We had recorded loans out at some clubs and not at others. Every club's squad is now checked against its own website and the League's registration return, and every player out on loan in 2026/27 is recorded with the loan.
• Wages are not published, so each loaned player carries an estimated salary range based on what the club paid for him. How much of it the borrowing club pays is stated for only a few players. Where a named outlet reports the split, we count the saving in the central figure. Where nobody states it, we no longer assume a half share: the saving can be anything from nothing to the whole wage, so it widens the range and leaves the central figure where it was.
• The same treatment applies to last season's loans, which lowered the wages in the accounts we start from. Where a player is back, or was counted out of the wage bill at his full salary, we add his saving back; where the split is not stated, that too goes into the range.
• Nottingham Forest's central figure falls from 102.3% to 99.3%. Omari Hutchinson's wages at AC Milan are reported to be paid in full by Milan, which takes off 1.7 points. Gustavo Sá was sold to Olympiacos on 30 July 2026, and we had still counted him in the squad. No fee has been published, so we record the sale at what Forest paid for him, as an estimate; that takes off 1.2 points. Forest are still above 85%.
• Manchester United's figure moves from 57.3% to 56.9%, Arsenal's from 59.9% to 60.1% and Liverpool's from 72.9% to 72.7%, on reported or relayed wage splits.
• At nine other clubs only the range moves. Because the possible saving on this season's loans is larger than the possible add-back for last season's, the bottom of each range falls further than the top: Chelsea's range is now 83.0% to 97.2%, Brighton's 70.7% to 82.1%.
• Tottenham's saving on this season's loans is held out for now, because the club's own wage figures already include part of it. Newcastle's is held out because last season's loans could not be checked against a source we accept.

What moved: Nottingham Forest 102.3% → 99.3% (range 90.5 to 102.0%); Manchester United 57.3% → 56.9%; Arsenal 59.9% → 60.1%; Liverpool 72.9% → 72.7%; ranges only: Chelsea, Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Manchester City, Everton, Tottenham; league 75.8% → 75.6%

Also moved:Nottingham ForestArsenalLiverpoolChelseaBrightonBrentfordBournemouthAston VillaCrystal PalaceManchester CityEvertonTottenham

A small correction to our update on Manchester United's 2025/26 results: 57.5%, from 57.6%. The club's main estimate, 57.3%, does not change, and no other club moves.

• To estimate United's player wages from the group's accounts we apply a share to the group's total staff costs. We had worked that share out from one company's table of staff costs and applied it to the listed parent's table, which also includes share-based payments. Both now come from the parent's table. The wages estimated for 2026/27 from the 2025/26 results fall by about £0.25m.
• The same update's range is now 55.0% to 60.3%, from 54.9% to 60.1%. United's 2025/26 accounts show £5.2m of costs for loss of office in the year its head coach left, without saying how much was his. The rule counts a manager's termination payment as squad cost, so the range now allows for anything between none and all of it. The central figure does not include it.
• We also tightened our own checks. Every figure in our evidence files must now equal the figure it supports in the model, or carry a recorded reason why it differs. Two of United's records had fallen out of step when the estimate moved to the group's accounts; no published figure was affected.

What moved: Manchester United, update on the 2025/26 results 57.6% → 57.5%

Manchester United's estimate is now built on the accounts of the group the rule describes, not the club company alone. The group includes the companies that sell the club's merchandise, run its media channel and field its women's team. The ratio falls from 59.0% to 57.3%. No other club moves.

• The rule tests a club together with its football companies. United's shop and licensing business, its media channel and its women's team sit in other companies of the same group, and their revenue was outside the accounts we read. We now read the group's accounts for 2024/25 and the figures the club's listed parent printed for 2025/26.
• Commercial revenue is higher, by about £61m in 2024/25. The rule counts merchandise at its profit, not its sales, so we take off the group's retail costs, about £37m, which the retail company's own accounts show to be the cost of the goods sold.
• Player wages do not change. The squad is employed by the club company, so we count the same wages as before against the larger group total.
• The update we published on United's 2025/26 results used the group's figures converted to the club company. It now uses them as printed. That update moves from 58.6% to 57.6%.
• The September forecast of record, 58.7%, is not rewritten. It was made on the club company's accounts.
• Not counted, and stated as a limitation, is the subscription income of the club's own media channel, about £5.8m in 2024/25. It sits in the group's broadcasting line, outside its commercial figures. If the rule counts it, the ratio would be about 0.4 points lower.
• The update on the 2025/26 results now rests on the audited annual report of the club's listed parent, and is United's 2025/26 accounts checkpoint.

What moved: Manchester United 59.0% → 57.3%

We now measure every contract from the day a player was registered to the day the contract ends. A player who signs in August on a "five-year deal" has a contract of four years and ten months, because contracts end on 30 June. We had spread his cost over five full years, which made each year's charge a little too small. On that change every club's ratio rises, by 0.1 to 0.9 points. Five clubs also move because we now read the accounts of the group the rule describes, not the club company alone. No club's central figure crosses a threshold.

• The cost of signing a player is spread over the length of his contract. We had used the length as announced, in whole years. We now use the time between the registration date and the contract's end date.
• 504 contract lengths changed. For 190 of them a source states the end date. For the other 314 we have derived it as the 30 June that the announced length points to, which is when contracts in English football end, and we mark those dates as derived until we have a source for each.
• No length changed by as much as half a year. The effect is a few weeks per player, added up across each squad.
• Bournemouth's central figure moves from 85.2% to 85.5%, in an assumption range of 80.1% to 87.7%. The range still spans the 85% line, so the estimate does not tell which side of the line the club is on.
• Brentford (84.1%) and Tottenham (82.3%) move closer to the line. Neither is above it at the central figure.
• The same rule now applies to the contract a loan with an obligation to buy would create. One published figure moves on it, Fulham's, by 0.1 points.
• The rule tests a club together with its football companies. At Brighton and Sunderland the women's team is a separate company whose revenue the rule counts, so their ratios fall, by 0.3 and 0.2 points. At Ipswich the group's accounts remove a fee the club charges its own parent, so its commercial revenue is lower and its ratio rises by a further 0.9 points.
• Newcastle's group includes the women's team and a fan zone beside the stadium that opened in August 2024. We count the women's team's revenue in full and the fan zone at its profit, which lowers the ratio from 84.7% to 83.9%. This rests on our reading of the rule. The rule counts matchday food and drink in full, and if the League treats the fan zone that way the figure is lower, so the assumption range now runs from 80.7% to 86.0%.
• Manchester City's women's team sits in another company of the same group. We add its ticket and broadcasting income, which lowers the ratio by 0.3 points. We do not add its sponsorship income, because the accounts do not show that it comes from outside the group.
• A women's team's company often receives money from its own club. We count only what comes from outside the group, and nothing extra where the team is already inside the accounts we read.
• For seven clubs the group's accounts cannot yet be applied, because the documents do not print what is needed or, at Manchester United, because the change is large enough to need a release of its own. Their figures are unchanged on this point and each club's article says so.
• A check that used to require whole years for a summer signing now requires each length to agree with its dates. It still refuses the error it was written to catch.
• A new check stops a club's European revenue being switched off by mistake. It compares each club's record with the list of clubs in the league phase of their competition.
• We read every figure we take from the clubs' accounts against its page again. Twelve did not match. None of them is used in the ratio, and all are corrected. One, Nottingham Forest's amortisation for 2023/24, had been quoted in our article and was corrected there on 4 October.

What moved: Arsenal 60.4% → 60.7%; Aston Villa 75.7% → 76.0%; Bournemouth 85.2% → 85.5%; Brentford 83.9% → 84.1%; Brighton 79.7% → 79.5%; Chelsea 94.0% → 94.3%; Coventry 63.5% → 64.1%; Crystal Palace 78.0% → 78.5%; Everton 72.8% → 73.3%; Fulham 106.0% → 106.4%; Hull 66.4% → 67.0%; Ipswich 94.1% → 95.8%; Leeds 67.0% → 67.4%; Liverpool 73.9% → 74.0%; Manchester United 58.8% → 59.0%; Newcastle 84.2% → 83.9%; Nottingham Forest 102.5% → 103.4%; Sunderland 63.2% → 63.4%; Tottenham 82.1% → 82.3%

Also moved:ArsenalAston VillaBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaCoventry CityCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamHull CityIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

We rebuilt the matchday income that the rule counts for every club. The rule takes last season's gate receipts per home match and multiplies by this season's home matches. We had not counted the matches properly and had not written down how we estimated the receipts. Both are now done: the matches are counted from archived match reports, and the receipts follow a published method. Fourteen clubs' squad cost ratios move, eight down and six up, and no club crosses a threshold.

• Home cup ties. The rule counts the average number of home FA Cup and League Cup matches over three seasons, rounded up. Twelve clubs had too few. Newcastle and Chelsea each played 13 in three seasons, so the rule counts five a season.
• Last season's home matches. The rule divides last season's receipts by every home match played. Eleven clubs' counts were wrong. Newcastle played 31 home matches, not 24; Crystal Palace 28, not 24; Chelsea 26, not 28.
• Last season's receipts. Most clubs have not filed 2025/26 accounts, so the figure is an estimate. For thirteen clubs it now starts from the last filed year, adjusted for the change in cup and European home matches and for 5% growth. Arsenal's earlier figure, raised for a European run that was no longer than the year before, is withdrawn.
• The largest movements are Tottenham, 79.4% to 77.6%, and Newcastle, 77.7% to 79.4%. At Fulham and Brentford the corrections cancel and the figure does not move.
• Manchester United's records take five small corrections to a signing date, two fees and two contract lengths, worth less than a hundredth of a point together.
• Every figure on the site is now rounded once, from the model's exact value. Three printed ranges change by a tenth of a point as a result.
• The method is set out in "How we estimate matchday revenue". A separate review of agents' fees on signings since the last accounts is under way and may raise these figures; we will report its result.

What moved: Tottenham 79.4% → 77.6%; Newcastle 77.7% → 79.4%; Crystal Palace 73.6% → 74.9%; Liverpool 70.6% → 69.6%; Everton 71.7% → 70.7%; Arsenal 55.8% → 56.6%; Chelsea 88.6% → 88.0%; Manchester United 58.7% → 58.1%; Aston Villa 71.9% → 72.5%; Brighton 77.8% → 77.4%; Nottingham Forest 96.7% → 97.0%; Bournemouth 83.0% → 82.8%; Coventry 61.2% → 61.0%; Manchester City 74.1% → 74.2%

Also moved:TottenhamNewcastleCrystal PalaceLiverpoolEvertonArsenalChelseaAston VillaBrightonNottingham ForestBournemouthCoventry CityManchester CityFulhamBrentfordLeeds

Record-keeping corrections with no change to any published figure. Chelsea's records listed one player twice under two spellings of his name, with a loan that no source supports; both are removed and his actual loans are recorded. A Manchester United source is replaced with a better one.

• Chelsea carried David Datro Fofana twice, once as "David Fofana". The second entry and a 2026/27 loan recorded against it are removed, and his two 2025/26 loans, to Fatih Karagümrük and Strasbourg, are added with their sources.
• None of this moves Chelsea's figure. The duplicate was never counted in the squad cost, because Chelsea's older registrations are costed from the club's filed accounts, and the removed loan recorded no money received.
• Manchester United's record of Habeeb Ogunneye's free transfer to Arsenal, with a 40% sell-on, is now sourced to the Evening Standard rather than to United's announcement, which gives no terms.

What moved: No published figure changes.

Also moved:Chelsea

The wage roll-forward comparison is remeasured on the current baseline. The fifteen clubs that roll their filed payroll forward range from −5.6% to 18.9% of the base it is added to, and the other five are built player by player and have no roll-forward. No published figure changes.

• Fourteen of the fifteen rows are unchanged since 20 September, including Tottenham's corrected 14.0%.
• Aston Villa's base is now £219.8m rather than £220.1m, on the staff cost as reported; its roll-forward and share are unchanged.
• Manchester United remains the only club above the range, at 18.9%, and the explanation (the reversal of a pay reduction linked to the Champions League) still matches the figures.
• Coventry City, Hull City, Ipswich Town, Leeds and Sunderland are listed as built player by player and sit outside the comparison.
• The comparison is still a review step rather than an automated gate.

Also moved:Aston Villa

Groundwork for testing forecasts in public: a club’s forecast can now be updated with new evidence beside the frozen original, never over it; and loan wage savings become sourced data rather than hand-set entries. No published figure moved.

• Dated information updates sit beside a frozen forecast. The first use is Manchester United’s 2025/26 results, on the track record.
• Loan wage relief is now built from a sourced record of every loan spell: who paid what share of which player’s wages, and for how long. For United this shows the September forecast’s hand-set loan entries understated wages: on the corrected method the September information gives 59.6%, not 58.7%. The published 58.7% stays as the forecast of record, and the correction is shown on the track record.
• Found and recorded, not yet applied: departed players’ book value was measured at 30 June 2025 at every club, rather than at each club’s own year end. Correcting it would move Arsenal from 56.8% to 56.6%, and three other clubs by less than the published precision.

Every club’s departures are now declared from sources, window by window, and reconciled against its ledger in both directions. All 20 clubs were migrated to the new check, and it is enforced: a departure missing on either side refuses the run.

• A declared departure with no matching sale in the ledger refuses; a sale in the ledger missing from the declaration refuses. Dates that differ by more than a week, or fall in a different financial year, refuse.
• Free transfers, releases, retirements and contract expiries are exits, not sales, and are never counted as departures.
• Migrating each club from its sources found missing sales, wrong dates and misclassified exits at several clubs. Each was corrected under its own record before the club was declared.

What moved: Chelsea 103.1% → 101.5%; Fulham 101.3% → 102.0%; Nottingham Forest 99.5% → 99.6% (missing sales, sale dates and the Jota Silva sale); Newcastle 76.7% → 77.1%; Brighton 77.6% → 77.8%; Brentford 84.2% → 84.5%; Everton 73.5% → 73.3%; Manchester United 58.6% → 58.7%. Others unchanged at published precision.

Also moved:ArsenalAston VillaBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaCoventry CityCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamHull CityIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

A new cross-club check: no player may be current at two clubs at once. Its first run across the 20 ledgers found four contradictions, all corrected before the check was switched on.

• Tynan Thompson was still current at Tottenham while Manchester United recorded him as a permanent arrival: a Tottenham sale was missing.
• Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton and Leeds), and Frankie Runham and Christopher Atherton (Chelsea and Ipswich) were each on two books.
• Names are matched across spellings and accents (Nørgaard and Norgaard are one player), and genuine namesakes are declared pair by pair, never excused everywhere.

Also moved:TottenhamEvertonLeedsChelseaIpswich Town

Manchester United added as the fifteenth club, at 58.6% under the rule and 61.9% before player trading. Engine code unchanged.

• The club company, Manchester United Football Club Limited, is used for both costs and revenue. Its 82 players match the men’s football operation, while Red Football Limited, the consolidating group, reports 133 including the women’s team. The group’s wider commercial income is published as a scope sensitivity, about 54.2%, and not blended into the figure.
• The wage roll-forward is about 19% of base, above the range at every other club, and is explained rather than accepted: the filed year was a season without the Champions League, and about £30m of the £37.5m is the reported reversal of a Champions League-linked pay reduction.
• The population was closed against the September 2025 and September 2026 Premier League squad returns. The two February returns are still to be encoded. The returns found one departure missing from the club-sourced transfer record.
• The FA’s published agents’ figure, £31.77m, replaced a £35m estimate before publication and moved the figure from 58.9% to 58.6%.
• The published figure, 58.6487%, sits close to a rounding boundary. It is published as computed, and the article names the two small inputs that would each print 58.7%: one contract length resting on consistent reporting rather than a club statement, and two undisclosed academy fees.
• Cross-ledger checks against six other clubs found two disagreements: Andrey Santos is carried at £48m on 13 July 2026 here and £47m on 25 August at Chelsea, and two academy sales to Arsenal carry estimated fees here and nil there. The Chelsea row is authorised for correction through the frozen-ledger process.

What moved: Manchester United enter at 58.6% (range 56.0 to 61.4%), 61.9% before player trading.