Your club · Manchester United

Four titles, not two.

Take Manchester City out of nine Premier League seasons and Manchester United are champions four times, not two, and make the top four seven times, not six. The new titles are 2011/12, by 20 points, and 2017/18, by one.

At a glance

Premier League seasons: 9 of 9 · 2009/10 to 2017/18
Points taken off City: 24 in 18 league games
Transfers with City: City paid Man Utd £0; Man Utd signed 1 player from City, fee undisclosed.

Season by season: real → without City

The nine seasons

Take Manchester City out of the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18 and Manchester United are champions four times, not two. They finish in the top four seven times, not six, and hold a Champions League place by league position in seven seasons, not six. In 2014/15 they also skip the play-off round.

None of it is a real climb. In six seasons United finished below City, and all six are the free place and nothing more: United step into the place City leave. When United finished second to City, that one place is the title. It happens twice, in 2011/12 and 2017/18. In the other three seasons United finished above City, and there was no place to take.

So the rebuilt roll of champions reads United, United, United from 2010/11 to 2012/13. Two of those are real. 2010/11 is still United’s, by eight instead of nine, with Rooney’s overhead-kick derby winner gone. 2012/13 is still Ferguson’s last title, by 12 instead of 11, without Van Persie’s stoppage-time winner at the Etihad.

The points run the other way. United took 24 points off City in 18 league games, seven wins, three draws and eight defeats, and every one comes off. Six came in 2009/10, joint most with Spurs and Everton that season: Owen’s and Scholes’s stoppage-time derby winners. United finish second on 79 either way, and a title Chelsea won by a point is won by seven.

2011/12

Champions by 20

City won 2011/12 on goal difference, level on 89 points. Sergio Agüero’s 94th-minute goal against QPR came 15 seconds after United’s final whistle at Sunderland, where they had won 1–0. The goal still happened. Without City, it has no table to land in.

United have nothing to hand back. City beat them in both derbies: 6–1 at home in October, United’s heaviest home defeat since February 1955, and 1–0 away in April. So all 89 points stand, and the nearest club is Spurs on 69. The defeat at Wigan and the 4–4 with Everton stay in. Nobody is close enough for them to matter.

It is David de Gea’s first season in England, too. United signed him from Atlético Madrid in June 2011, and he started 29 league games. Rebuilt, that first season ends with United champions.

2014/15

No play-off

For real United finished fourth on 70, and fourth that year meant the Champions League play-off round, the route they took in August 2015. Without City the 4–2 derby win in April, their first over City since December 2012, comes off. 70 becomes 67, and United are third, three clear of Spurs. Third went straight into the group stage. It is the free place and nothing more, but it changes the route.

2015/16

Fourth, by two

For real United finished level with City on 66 points and fifth on goal difference. On the final day a suspicious package was found at Old Trafford and the Bournemouth game was pushed back two days. By the time it was played, the table said United needed to win by at least 18 goals.

Without City both derbies go: the 0–0 at Old Trafford in October, and the 1–0 at the Etihad on 20 March, won by Marcus Rashford’s fifth goal in only his eighth United appearance. Four points off leaves 62. City’s 66 and their +30 leave too, and United are fourth, two clear: a Champions League play-off place.

2017/18

Champions by one

City’s 100 points left United 19 behind. Take City out and United go from runners-up to champions, just. The 3–2 at the Etihad in April comes off, and Paul Pogba’s two goals in two minutes with it. The 2–1 defeat at Old Trafford in December, the derby that ended in a tunnel row, had earned nothing. 81 becomes 78.

Spurs finish on 77, with the better goal difference: +43 to +40. It never comes into it. United even lose 1–0 at home to West Brom, the side who finish bottom, on 15 April, and still hold on by a point. For José Mourinho, a fourth English title. For United, a 21st.

The money

No player moved from United to City in these nine seasons, so City paid United nothing in reported fees. One went the other way: Frédéric Veseli, from City in January 2012, fee undisclosed (one undisclosed deal).

The two titles barely move the money. The prize-money step from second to first was one merit place: £755,062 in 2011/12 and £1,931,268 in 2017/18 (Sporting Intelligence). In 2011/12 United were paid £276,952 less than champions City, £60,325,337 to £60,602,289. In 2017/18 runners-up United were paid more than champions City: £149,767,145 to £149,438,654.

No money separates the 2014/15 routes: the 20 clubs in the 2015/16 play-off round, winners included, shared €50m (UEFA, 1 Nov 2016). What third removes is the risk of dropping into the Europa League.

The fourth place of 2015/16 is where a figure sits, and it came from the club’s own shirt deal: £21m, what United’s finance chief said a second straight season outside the Champions League would cost in Adidas money, 30% of a £70m year (Goal, 16 May 2017).

Every season, club by club

Positions are real of 20 and rebuilt of 19; see How it works.