Man Utd fan Frank Ilett captured imagination on social media with his vow to not get a haircut until his team win five competitive games in a row. That is now just a hair’s breadth from United’s grasp.
Four down, one to go.
Another Premier League matchday is upon us, and for Manchester United it represents the opportunity to win five successive matches for the first time in a long time.
For those of you who live under a rock or manage to avoid social media entirely, that number might sound fairly arbitrary. Everyone else, however, understands why it’s so topical.
In October 2024, Man Utd fan Frank Ilett pledged to not get his hair cut until the club had won five matches in a row.
As United remained the epitome of inconsistency, Ilett’s barnet – and social media following – grew, attracting more and more attention to not only his struggles with the unruly beast growing on his bonce, but also to the club’s on-pitch woes.
Rarely in that time have United looked like getting anywhere near five wins in a row as it coincided with the end of Erik ten Hag’s reign and Ruben Amorim’s entire spell in the seat. Amorim only ever managed as many as three successive wins on one occasion.
Suddenly, however, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, a glint reflecting back off shiny scissors unused in nearly 500 days.
Since Michael Carrick was appointed United’s head coach until the end of the season, the team have looked transformed. After beginning with the astonishing scalps (pun intended) of Manchester City and Arsenal, United then beat Fulham with a last-gasp winner before sweeping 10-man Tottenham aside on Saturday.
Ilett, who has said he’ll donate his shorn locks to charity if United ever reach the magic number, now needs just one more win on Tuesday at West Ham.
The subject was even brought up in United’s pre-match press conference. Carrick, presumably once a witness to Alex Ferguson’s infamous ‘hairdryer treatment’, did well to seemingly avoid any mid-sentence flashbacks when hair was referenced.
“It certainly won’t go into the team talk,” he said with the smile of a man blissfully unencumbered by the stresses of excess hair.
While Tuesday’s opposition are in the relegation zone, West Ham have shown their own signs of improvement lately, winning three of their last four games in the Premier League. A Man Utd victory certainly isn’t a given, then.
So how long has it actually been?
Well, Ilett made his pledge in October 2024, with his most recent haircut taking place on 5 October 2024. Since then, 494 days have passed – but it’s also worth noting that United’s run without five successive victories actually stretches back much further.
In February 2024, they found themselves on a five-match winning streak in all competitions after defeating Newport County, Wolves, West Ham, Aston Villa and Luton Town. But then, on 24 February, Fulham left Old Trafford with a 2-1 victory.
So, 723 days have passed since that win over Luton on 18 February 2024.
Only six of this season’s other Premier League teams are currently on longer runs without five consecutive wins in all competitions.
The longest such run belongs to Brentford. They’ve not tallied five wins on the bounce in all comps since they were promoted to the Premier League.
Currently it’s 2,036 days since they recorded an eighth successive victory in the Championship, later going on to reach the 2019-20 play-off final, which they lost to Fulham.
Ilett’s beehive would be almost three times the size if he was a Brentford fan, then. Though admittedly the Bees waiting for five successive wins is a bit less newsworthy than Manchester United going on such a barren run.
At the other end of the scale, Chelsea are the team to have most recently won five in a row. Last week’s 1-0 defeat to Arsenal in the EFL Cup semi-final second leg ended a sequence of five victories, the final one being that 3-2 comeback defeat of West Ham on 31 January.
For United, this run has of course attracted more attention because of Ilett’s story. Without him, the fact they’d not won five in a row for so long may not have even registered with most, but this quirk, curse, curio – call it what you will – has taken on a life of its own.
United could obviously fall short once again. West Ham have looked somewhat resurgent in recent weeks and will be desperate to keep up their own momentum as they battle against relegation.
Either way, it all comes down to this. The most infamous ‘do’ in football fandom is hair today but potentially gone tomorrow.
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