Early-season angst check: Do Madrid, Man United, Wrexham need to be worried?

With big spending and expectations comes angst. You make a marquee move, but fall behind your biggest rival. You're used to winning every title, but the rest of the league catches up. You're used to zooming through promotion pushes, but suddenly realize everyone around you is better (and richer) than you. Your newfound riches buy success, and then they don't. Your run of great transfer signings ends, and you don't know why. Your league is told it does things the right way, but you fall far below your bigger-spending peers.

The offseason is either for angst or excitement, and for the nine entities below -- eight clubs and one league -- there was more of the former than latter. With a few weeks gone in 2025-26, let's check in on whether the angst is growing or dissipating for the motley crew of Real Madrid, Manchester City, Manchester United, the Bundesliga, Wrexham, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Juventus and AC Milan.

Real Madrid

Reason for angst: Evolution is hard

Madrid signed Kylian Mbappé after winning the UEFA Champions League, and then proceeded to faceplant by their standards, falling behind Barcelona in LaLiga and suffering a meek Champions League quarterfinal exit to Arsenal. Carlo Ancelotti left behind a cranky squad with potential ego and incongruity issues.

From the embarrassing Ballon d'Or protest early in the season, to the defensive injuries, cluttered spacing and nonexistent pressing that pervaded throughout, nothing really worked for Real Madrid in 2024-25. Perhaps not surprisingly, they responded with a pretty big makeover: In came manager Xabi Alonso, center back Dean Huijsen, fullbacks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Álvaro Carreras and teenager winger Franco Mastantuono. Out went veterans Luka Modric and Lucas Vázquez.

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It all made sense on paper, but how long would it take Alonso to craft his system from superstars and newcomers?

Not long, apparently! Injuries and experimentation have led Alonso to already start 19 different players in seven matches, and he's gotten only 275 combined minutes from Alexander-Arnold, Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga and Antonio Rüdiger.

Alonso has played primarily with four defenders at the back -- though he broke out a 3-4-2-1 in Tuesday's 4-1 thumping of Levante -- and he's had to lean more on young attackers like Mastantuono (18) and Arda Güler (20) more than he might have expected. And yet, Real Madrid have won all seven of their matches by a combined 16-4.

They needed a pair of penalties to overcome a Dani Carvajal red card and an early Tim Weah goal in a 2-1 win over Marseille in their Champions League opener, but they still dominated the match overall (xG created: Real Madrid 3.7, Marseille 0.8). Guler has two goals and two assists in 515 minutes, and Mastantuono scored his first goal for the club on Tuesday.

18-YEAR-OLD FRANCO MASTANTUONO SCORES HIS FIRST GOAL FOR REAL MADRID 🔥 pic.twitter.com/sGL0Fl6JXR

Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior, who occupied a lot of the same spaces last season, have combined for eight goals and four assists (not even including Mbappé's four penalties) and, after a frustrating 2024-25 campaign, Vini is also back and doing outrageous things like this, also from Tuesday:

VINI JR. WITH A TRIVELA GOAL 😱 pic.twitter.com/nPn72G8PBj

Transition defense hasn't been spectacular -- they're 17th in LaLiga in xG allowed per shot -- but that generally comes with the territory when you're undergoing a system change and dominating the ball like Real Madrid does (61.4% possession, second to only Barcelona).

Current angst level (1-10 scale, with 1 being low, 10 being high): 2

Considering the youth, the turnover and the injuries, it's hard to complain about much right now. Even by Real Madrid's standards, seven wins from seven matches is pretty decent. Alonso almost benefited from early superstar injuries, as they allowed him to get to know younger players and create buy-in and proof of concept. One has to assume that, once Bellingham et al are full speed, this is going to be a pretty scary squad.

The city of Manchester

Reason for angst: It's always something with these two teams

It's a legal requirement to put Manchester United on any angst list, and in 34 league matches since Nov. 1 of last year, Manchester City have generated fewer Premier League points than Crystal Palace and 22 fewer than Liverpool. There's more than enough angst to go around in this city.

Man City probably waited too long to undergo a roster refresh while winning four straight Premier League titles between 2020-21 and 2023-24, but after last winter's collapse, they got going. They've spent more than €450 million in transfer fees on nearly a new lineup's worth of new talent. They also got 2024 Ballon d'Or winner Rodri back from injury.

But while things can occasionally click beautifully into place -- see their 5-2 win over Juventus in the Club World Cup, or the 4-0 and 3-0 wins over Wolverhampton Wanderers and Man United in the Premier League -- tactical balance and transition defense are still issues.

In the Premier League and Champions League, Erling Haaland has attempted 39% of City's shots and scored 64% of their goals. Meanwhile, Al Hilal countered them to pieces in the Club World Cup, and they've already lost to Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton & Hove Albion in the league. And against Arsenal last weekend, they almost forfeited the ball, producing just 34% possession and five shot attempts trying to see out an early lead.

A Pep Guardiola team with 34% possession! That's as angsty as you can get. All that money spent, and City are already eight points behind Liverpool (who also spent a few pounds) this season with basically one trustworthy scoring option.

Man United, meanwhile, have lived with angst for so long that if it ever leaves, they might miss it. Since winning the Premier League with 89 points in 2012-13, Sir Alex Ferguson's last season, they've topped 70 points only three times in 12 years. They're coming off of by far their worst Premier League season (42 points, 15th place), and they've won only nine of 32 league matches since hiring Ruben Amorim last November.

Among the 17 teams playing in the Premier League both last season and this season, only Spurs (!) have generated fewer points.

All the club's long-standing and utterly crippling problems -- buying high, selling low, lurching from one style to another every time it's time to hire a new manager (and letting that manager dictate personnel far too much) -- remain issues. Players join Manchester United and produce their worst ever stats, then leave and return to previous form. But there are at least wafts of progress this season, and not just from a "surely it couldn't get worse" perspective. The attack is generating far more danger than it has in recent seasons: United rank first in the league in shots per possession and seventh in xG per shot. They have generated 10.1 xG, most in the league, and they've been unfortunate to score only six goals. Two were own goals, too, which makes it an even stranger combination. With even below-average finishing, they could end up in European contention.

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Don Hutchison previews Manchester United's visit to Brentford in a bid to secure back-to-back wins after defeating Chelsea.

Current angst level: 7 for Man City, 7.5 for United

It's hard to worry about City finishing outside of the top four just yet -- they still finished third last year, even with that epic slump -- but it still feels like they're a distant third, at best, in the title race. United? Well, I basically just suggested that with a few breaks, they might be in contention for seventh place or so. That's pretty dark as far as positive spin goes.

The Bundesliga

Reason for angst: Uh, do elite players still want to play in Germany?

The Bundesliga's 50+1 model is generally regarded as the gold standard for club ownership, and no major league is more fan-friendly (or fan-responsive). Their reward for this: Frequently boring title races, domestic domination from Bayern Munich and a revenue gap with other major leagues that has basically turned Germany's light heavyweight clubs into a Premier League feeder system. Even Bayern couldn't sign the Bundesliga's best young players this summer!

After scoring a bonus Champions League berth thanks to stellar performances in 2023-24, the Bundesliga's 2025-26 European campaign was mostly a dud. Bayern and Borussia Dortmund lost in the Champions League quarterfinals, while VfB Stuttgart and RB Leipzig failed to even reach the round of 24. Of three German teams in the Europa and Conference leagues, only Eintracht Frankfurt reached the quarterfinals. In domestic play, Bayer Leverkusen regressed, Borussia Dortmund had to rally to snag a top-four finish, and RB Leipzig suffered its worst ever Bundesliga campaign.

And after all that iffy play, the league lost Bayer Leverkusen's Florian Wirtz (Liverpool) and Jeremie Frimpong (Liverpool), RB Leipzig's Benjamin Sesko (Manchester United), Xavi Simons (Tottenham Hotspur) and Loïs Openda (Juventus), Eintracht Frankfurt's Hugo Ekitike (Liverpool), Stuttgart's Nick Woltemade (Newcastle) and Borussia Dortmund's Jamie Gittens (Chelsea). Leverkusen manager Alonso left, too.

After all the underwhelming play of 2024-25, the Bundesliga currently has only four teams in the top 40 of Opta's power rankings; Italy's Serie A has seven, and even France's Ligue 1 has five. Spain's forever top-heavy LaLiga also has only four. That doesn't say exciting things about the league's competitiveness, either in terms of UEFA competitions or in the hopes of someone challenging Bayern in league play.

None of this has to have a massive impact on spirits within the league, mind you; the fans still create incredible atmospheres, and if they're at least semi-satisfied, maybe that's all that matters. But early indications are that the league might have a pretty fun 2025-26 campaign.

Bayern have started out in great form: Despite missing out on both Wirtz and Woltemade in the transfer window and dealing with long-term injuries for both Jamal Musiala and Alphonso Davies, they still landed attackers Luis Díaz and Nicolas Jackson and defender Jonathan Tah. They've won four of four Bundesliga matches, and they pummeled Chelsea 3-1 at home to start Champions League play. But Dortmund have also started well (they have 10 points in league play and drew away with Juventus in the Champions League), and Eintracht Frankfurt, with a new batch of young stars, destroyed Galatasaray in the Champions League.

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Michael Owen's 'hypocritical' comments on Harry Kane's Bayern move

Steve Nicol reacts to Michael Owen's claim that Harry Kane was "nuts" for joining Bayern Munich from Spurs.

Current angst level: 3.5

Granted, Bayer Leverkusen have already fired one manager and have won just one of their last five matches; that's less than ideal. But the league still has hope of multiple teams making decent UEFA runs, and maybe BVB or Eintracht can make Bayern sweat for a while domestically.

Wrexham

Reason for angst: The Championship isn't a place for Hollywood endings

Three straight promotions and a popular television show have brought this proud old club to heights it hadn't seen since the 1970s. But in the English Championship, one step away from promised Premier League glory, they're suddenly at the wrong end of the spending and squad quality gap.

From the start, it was pretty clear that this was going to be a different kind of Welcome to Wrexham season, as the large spending advantages they lorded over most of England's third, fourth and fifth divisions while earning three consecutive promotions vanished the moment they landed in the Championship.

The club did its best to upgrade the roster, spending nearly €40 million in transfer fees and bringing in loads of veterans with second-division experience. They were a more defense-driven team in the third division, but adding players like 32-year-old Kieffer Moore (four goals) and 31-year-old Josh Windass (three goals) has helped them to produce above-average attacking numbers early in 2025-26. Windass scored a brace while another newcomer, Issa Kaboré, had two assists in a 3-2 win over Norwich City last Saturday. Moore had two goals in a draw with Sheffield Wednesday, and Moore and Lewis O'Brien -- yet another newcomer -- scored in a 2-0 win over Millwall. That's undoubtedly encouraging.

The problem is that the defense has fallen apart. Wrexham are 19th in goals allowed (12), and that's actually a bit lucky: They're 24th in xG allowed, and they're getting crushed in terms of both shot volume (24th in shots allowed per possession) and shot quality (23rd in xG allowed per shot). That has given them the worst xG differential in the league after six matches.

(Yes, that's Tom Brady-backed Birmingham City, another promoted team, in second place on the table above).

Wrexham have managed to pull two wins and a draw from their last four league matches, and they're therefore in 15th place. But in those three positive results, they scored seven goals from shots worth 3.1 xG and allowed just four from shots worth 7.0 xG. That is dramatically unsustainable.

Current angst level: 8

Scoring a couple of fun, dramatic wins has probably been good for morale, but if their level of play doesn't improve, especially in defense, Welcome to Wrexham viewers will learn what a dire and potentially fruitless relegation fight is like in the coming months.

Newcastle and Aston Villa

Reason for angst: Success has dried up after spending

New ownership and big spending have brought both clubs success they hadn't seen in ages -- Newcastle played in the Champions League for the first time in 21 years in 2023-24, Villa for the first time in 41 years in 2024-25. But English profit and sustainability rules (PSR) have slowed Newcastle's spending capabilities and downright stopped Villa's. And this year has not started well on the field, either.

We forecast Newcastle 6th and Villa 7th in the preseason. They're currently 13th and 18th, respectively. Newcastle had to let go of both Elliot Anderson (who quickly became one of Nottingham Forest's most important young players) and Yankuba Minteh (ditto Brighton) last season to avoid PSR issues, and this summer they ran into a different type of problem when star Alexander Isak simply decided he wanted to leave. They held onto him for most of the summer before relenting and letting him join Liverpool, then acquiring Woltemade (Stuttgart) and Yoane Wissa (Brentford) near the deadline.

In other words, Newcastle began the season shorthanded and didn't get reinforcements until they had already dropped points in their first three matches of the season. Woltemade scored in a solid 1-0 win over Wolves, but they lost to Barcelona at home in the Champions League and their attack no-showed in a 0-0 draw with AFC Bournemouth. Add it all up, and that's four goals and only one win in their first six matches in all competitions. (They did at least score four against third-division Bradford City in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.)

Newcastle's attacking problems, however, seem like aspirations to Villa, who had major spending restrictions this summer and have begun the league season with scores of 0-0, 0-1, 0-3, 0-0 and 1-1. It took them more than seven hours of play to score a goal in a Premier League match, and it came from right back Matty Cash on a set piece. They still have zero in open play.

Like Newcastle, they waited until deep into the transfer window to look for attacking reinforcements, so they've only gotten 59 combined league minutes from loanees Jadon Sancho and Harvey Elliott. Plus, they've suffered an epidemic of midfield injuries, with Amadou Onana, Boubacar Kamara and Youri Tielemans missing a combined eight games in all competitions.

Current angst levels: 7.5 for Newcastle, 9.5 for Villa

It's a lot easier to spin things positively regarding Newcastle, as they've still defended well and produced a solid xG differential against a tougher early schedule and have been beset by draws instead of losses. It won't be a surprise if they shift into gear soon. But Villa seem genuinely broken.

Unai Emery's side are 20th in xG created and 19th in xG allowed despite playing one of the lighter league schedules to date. How have things fallen apart this quickly considering they also didn't lose much from last year's sixth-place squad? And if they do find a rhythm soon, what's their actual upside at this point?

Juventus and AC Milan

Reason for angst: It's been years since these clubs were as good as we know they can be

Juve have fallen into a five-year identity crisis, while Milan emerged from one for a couple of years, only to fall apart in 2024-25.

Only five clubs have reached at least nine European Cup/Champions League finals. Milan (11) and Juventus (nine) are two of them. But they've both learned over the last decade or so that making desperate moves to hold onto your position of royalty can send you into the wilderness. Milan emerged from a dire stretch long enough to win the Scudetto in 2022 and reach the Champions League semis in 2023, but by 2024-25, they had plummeted back to eighth place.

Juventus dominated Serie A for most of the 2010s and reached the Champions League final in 2015 and 2017. But losses to all-time great Barcelona (2015) and Real Madrid (2017) teams drove them crazy enough to spend €117 million on a 33-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo in 2018. The financial problems began soon after; their Scudetto streak ended in 2020, and they've gone from losing in the Champions League quarterfinals (2018 and 2019) to losing in the round of 16 (2020, 2021, 2022), to falling in the group stages (2023 and 2025).

Juve spent €137.3 million in transfer fees this summer, primarily to bring in prime-age players between 25 and 27, including forwards Jonathan David and Openda, to pair with young star Kenan Yildiz. They've taken 10 points from their first four Serie A matches and, unlike last season's experiment with manager Thiago Motta, which produced a run of turgid, low-scoring performances, Juve have been shockingly entertaining this season despite David and Openda contributing little. Their two early-season matches against major opponents produced absolute track meets: a 4-3 win over Internazionale in Serie A and a 4-4 comeback draw against Dortmund in the Champions League.

AC Milan flipped a good percentage of last year's squad, earning big transfer fees by sending away veterans like Tijjani Reijnders and Theo Hernández and acquiring both new veterans like Modric, Adrien Rabiot, Pervis Estupiñán and Christopher Nkunku and a new batch of youngsters. Former Juve manager Max Allegri doesn't have the greatest history of leaning on youth, but he knows what to do with Modric -- who's second in Serie A with 48 progressive passes at age 40 (Serie A has long been a good pre-retirement home, but damn) -- and Estupiñán and Rabiot have been solid as well.

The season couldn't have started worse -- Milan lost 2-1 at home to Cremonese -- but since then they've outscored five Serie A and Coppa Italia opponents by a combined 11-0. They're third in the league.

Current angst levels: 6 for Juventus, 5 for Milan

Early returns on summer additions are decent, at least, and Juve's attack and Milan's defense are top-notch. Juve did still drop points at home in their first Champions League match, though.