It’s the happiest time of the year!

The upshot of this is we can start to infer some trends and see what patterns are coming to light. So what are some of the most interesting stories emerging across Europe this season?

An obvious place to start, but let’s go with it anyway: Manchester United.

In a word: yes.

Ruben Amorim’s job at Manchester United has arguably never been less secure. Three defeats in six, fourteenth in the table, and an insistence on sticking to a formation so dogmatic that he’s been quoted at saying even The Pope couldn’t get him to change his mind.

But look at that xG line in red. That’s been steadily increasing for around half a season now. In fact, Man U currently have the highest total xG in the whole league, which is mad for a team in their position in the table. It turns out that when you spend 225m euros on a new front three, they’ll be quite good. However, two of those three (Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha) were among the league’s highest xG over-performers last season, and so a regression to the mean (or below!) was to be expected.

Their defence still looks ropey though, and the xG conceded line has been creeping up for almost as long as the xG for line. When you don’t address the problem areas in your team, spend the GDP of a small island nation on a new attack, and have a system that alternates between a stoic 3-4-3 and “pure vibes”, things won’t always go to plan.

We might have to start accepting the idea.

Those are some scarily good numbers to be starting the season with. Burnley never looked as good as that at any point last season, and they broke defensive records and finished with 100 points. After looking out of his depth at Chelsea and Everton, this is a real comeback story.

At the time of writing they’re third in the table (albeit with a game in hand) and have more draws than wins. But they’re still unbeaten and lead the division in terms of goals per game (2.6), shots on target per match (5.6) and touches in the opposition box (258). Expect them to be there or thereabouts come May.

Elsewhere in the Midlands, it really isn’t going so well.

According to TransferMarkt, the average value of a Leicester player is 5.82m euros. They currently sit fifth but have drawn their last four games, their top assister has been playing for Stuttgart since the end of August, and they’re fourteenth in the table in terms of xG created. Speaking of xG, Fotmob has them sitting at eighteenth in the table based on their performances so far this season. They may have only lost one league game up to this point, but it looks at though things might get worse before they get better.

There’s not much chance of that happening again any time soon.

A couple of awful performances to kick off the season makes the graph look worse than perhaps it is, but Girona sit rock bottom of La Liga and winless after seven games. They’ve already conceded sixteen goals which has included a 4-0 home defeat against newly-promoted Levante and they’re the worst team in Spain for final third possession regains. In their last match, they started with a 36-year-old Axel Witsel and a 35-year-old Daley Blind in midfield, and brought a 38-year-old Cristhian Stuani off the bench. In 2023-24 they had Yan Couto and Savinho on loan from other City Football Group teams and finished third in the league. Those days seem a lifetime ago now.

Take a look at the graph below. Isn’t it nice when a team starts the season well? This looks like a very high-performing team who have made some positive changes.

SC Heerenveen slightly improved throughout 2024-25, and actually looked like they were doing pretty well when Robin van Persie got poached by Feyenoord in February 2025. Robin Veldman was appointed in March and Heerenveen finished the season in ninth. That’s roughly on par for a team who had finished eleventh, eighth, eighth, twelfth and tenth in the preceding five seasons.

But now? Heerenveen sit fifth for xG created and third for xG conceded. They’ve outperformed their opponents in terms of xG in every single game they’ve played this season except one. So surely they can be dreaming of Europe? Maybe even a title shot? At the very least, some excitement to escape years of mid-table mediocrity?

Well… they’re not mid-table.

Somehow, Heerenveen find themselves in sixteenth which, in the Eredivisie, puts you in a relegation play-off at the end of the season. If the table was based on xG they’d be fifth, just two points off top spot. As it is, it already feels like the best they can hope for is yet another mid-table finish.

All hail SC Heerenveen. Truly Europe’s unluckiest football club.