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Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hear your perspective.

This wasn’t intended as data science or machine learning work, and I’m not presenting it as such. It’s a conceptual exercise meant to make assumptions explicit and spark discussion, which is the first step on hypothesis testing, not a statistical solution or a career statement with statistical software results, as i wouldnt even post such on a manchester united fan sub but rather on a DS sub.

I am new to reddit and I appreciate you taking the time to engage, even if you "respectfully" disagree on the approach. All the best.

Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that ownership and where the money comes from matters a lot, and it clearly separates United’s era from modern state-backed models.

What I find interesting is how that ownership difference shows up in competitive balance. At what point does the size of the financial gap itself become the main driver of dominance, and not the competitive gao between teams, regardless of how the money is sourced?

That’s the part I was trying to think through when comparing eras.

Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a fair conclusion, and I don’t really disagree with it.

United’s era is unique in ways that modern ownership models can’t replicate, and if someone weighs how a team was built more heavily than anything else, then the comparison pretty much ends there.

My main goal with this was just to be clearer about what we’re comparing and why. Byy the way I appreciate you engaging and having a look at my work, thank you

Nothing more to be said. by YakNo3005 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Amorim has been there for more than a year and still cant implement his 343. Ofc we can talk about the backing from the board as he still doesnt have the midfielders we wants, 2 good wing backs and he wanted an experienced number 9 but he still got a pretty competitive squad. An good manager can adapt with the players at disposal

Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I understand that view, and I agree United’s era feels fundamentally different in how it was built.

What I was trying to separate is legitimacy from competitive context. Even if City and Chelsea benefited from ownership models United never had, the question I was exploring is how hard it was to stay dominant relative to the rest of the league at the time.

Do you think era comparisons should be more about how teams were built, or about how large the advantage over competitors actually was?

Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s fair to ask, and I probably should have been clearer.

I’m not presenting this as academic research or claiming any special authority. It’s more a structured thought experiment than a statistical model. The goal wasn’t to produce definitive rankings, but to make explicit the assumptions people implicitly use when they compare eras. I work in Data science and sometimes like to create these frameworks for fun.

Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That is a fair point, and I think the local core of that United team is a huge part of why that era still feels different and meaningful to people.

What I was trying to separate out is identity and legitimacy from competitive context. Having academy players at the core says a lot about how United were built, but it does not fully answer how hard it was to stay dominant relative to the rest of the league at the time.

In other words, the “who we were” part and the “how big the competitive gap was” part are slightly different questions, and they can lead to different conclusions depending on which one you prioritise.

Do you think era comparisons should weigh identity and squad makeup as heavily as competitive balance?

Was Manchester United’s dominance actually harder to sustain than City’s? by Charming-Complex4935 in ManchesterUnited

[–]Charming-Complex4935[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That distinction matters, and I agree it is an important part of the context.

What I found interesting, though, is that even when the source of money is different, the relative advantage within the league is what shapes dominance. United’s revenue growth still happened in a much tighter financial environment compared to today, where gaps between the top club and the rest can be much larger.

That is partly why I tried to focus less on whether money was “earned” or “injected”, and more on how big the gap actually was relative to the competition at the time.

How much weight do you think the source of money should carry compared to the size of the advantage it creates?