If he didn’t know before, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is finding out just how hard it is to be the man in charge of Manchester United.
Three months into his first full season at Old Trafford, results are poor, pressure is mounting on coach Erik ten Hag and now the British billionaire is having to deal with the fallout from the decision to cut off the greatest manager in the club’s history, Sir Alex Ferguson.
International breaks are supposed to be about rest and recuperation for club sides, but this one has been bruising for Ratcliffe and his INEOS team, who purchased a minority stake of £1.25 billion from majority owners the Glazer family in February. The 71-year-old has had to justify ending Ferguson’s role as a £2m-a-year ambassador as part of cost-cutting measures implemented across the board.
Former club captain Eric Cantona said the move showed “a lack of respect.” One former player told ESPN that Ferguson’s removal as an ambassador, as well as the departure of a number of long-serving staff members as part of a redundancy programme, makes it feel as if Ratcliffe has “ripped the soul out of the club.”
The INEOS CEO has also faced accusations he’s dodging the decision to sack Ten Hag. A seven-hour board meeting held in London last week ended with no further clarity on his position as manager.
It has only been a few months since United said the Dutchman was the best man for the job and extended his contract by a year, but ahead of the Premier League fixture against Brentford on Saturday, the storied club — with 13 Premier League titles to its name — is languishing 14th in the table. There is a feeling among some supporters that Ratcliffe and INEOS are botching many of their early tests, and that the golden future predicted when they arrived might be harder to achieve than first thought.
The question remains, will Ratcliffe’s plan get United back on top, or is this another false dawn? — Rob Dawson
Success and acceptance hard to find for new leadership
Sir Dave Brailsford is the man behind the theory of marginal gains, where finding the extra 1% can make the difference between competing and winning. This approach helped make Team GB’s cyclists the dominant force in their sport for a decade, delivering multiple gold medals at successive Olympic Games, so in many ways, Brailsford, British cycling’s former performance director, would seem to be the perfect fit for Manchester United.
INEOS is Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s petrochemicals company that has invested in cycling, sailing, football and Formula 1, and the 60-year-old head of sport has been at the forefront of its running of United since acquiring a minority stake in February, but success, and acceptance, at Old Trafford is proving difficult to find.
“Brailsford held a meeting with the first-team squad shortly after INEOS took charge of football operations at the club,” a source told ESPN. “He sat there in a cream shirt and pair of cream chinos, telling the players that he lived on the most exclusive street in Monte Carlo, but that he was coming to Manchester because he was going to help make United better.
“The players left the room rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. It was like they were supposed to be grateful that Dave had given up his idyllic lifestyle to save them all. All they’ve seen since is cost-cutting and people losing their jobs.”
Three months later, the promise to “make United better” had a hollow ring to it as the first-team players threatened to pay for their own flight back to Manchester after the FA Cup final in London. The club was providing other means of transportation back from the capital, where United had beaten Manchester City to win the FA Cup. With the club holding firm, senior players pushed back and insisted they would source their own flight home.
When asked for comment, the club insists adequate transportation was booked for the Sunday morning — with the team enjoying a party at the hotel the night of the final — but some players chose to fly off on holiday direct from London instead.
“The players and senior staff thought it was unprofessional to travel back to Manchester on a bus, simply because it was the cheaper option, so they told the club they would pay for their own plane,” a source told ESPN.
“The club backed down pretty quickly, but it was embarrassing for them. This is Manchester United, and the players were being treated like a League One team.”
United have been in a state of flux for longer than anyone at the club cares to remember, but the latest mess — “s— show,” as one recently departed staffer told ESPN — can be traced back to the Glazer family announcing in November 2022 that it would seek outside investment and, potentially, a sale of the club it had purchased in 2005.
The so-called strategic review dragged on for months, with Ratcliffe’s INEOS group and a rival bid led by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al Thani vying out to secure ownership of the club. Neither group was prepared to match the Glazers’ £6 billion valuation, so Ratcliffe changed his approach, offering £1.25 billion for a 27.7% stake and control of United’s football operations and ultimately claiming the prize — or part of it.
On taking charge of the football side of United in February, Ratcliffe promised to lift United “back to the top of English, European and world football,” at the same time asking for patience from supporters as he attempted to turn round football’s equivalent of an oil tanker.
“Ratcliffe’s first question to United’s football staff was, ‘How are you messing it up so badly, what’s gone wrong here?'” a source told ESPN. “The problem for him now is that he could ask the same question, but INEOS now have to take their share of the blame.”
Eight months after taking charge of the football operations at United, INEOS has made plenty of changes. It has hired a new CEO (Omar Berrada), a new sporting director (Dan Ashworth) and a technical director (Jason Wilcox), but the team is languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League and manager Ten Hag lurches from game to game fielding questions about his job security after every disappointing result or performance.
In an attempt to cut costs and streamline United’s operation, Ratcliffe and INEOS have announced 250 job cuts, cancelled corporate credit cards and told staff that the plan is to reduce the workforce to the same size as Real Madrid.
“Ed Woodward wanted us to be like Barcelona, Richard Arnold thought we should adopt the model used by Formula 1 and now INEOS want us to be like Real Madrid,” a United source told ESPN about former club CEOs. “Everyone tells us we’re the biggest club in the world, so why should we constantly be trying to copy somebody else?”
For the players, sources have said that the experience of playing for Manchester United now seems like anything but representing one of the game’s most illustrious teams. Two people told ESPN that Bruno Fernandes was prepared to leave this summer after growing tired of the club’s repeated failure to deliver, but eventually stayed and signed a contract after, according to one source, “the club panicked and gave him a massive new deal.”
1:49
Laurens: Nothing will change for Man United if they keep Ten Hag
Nedum Onuoha and Julien Laurens discuss Erik ten Hag’s future at Man United after club executives met in London.
Many of the players have been “underwhelmed” by the impact made by INEOS, while there has been anger within the dressing room at not simply the departure of several long-serving staff members as part of the job cuts, but also at the treatment of some of them.
“One member of the ground staff had been at the club for over 30 years,” a source said. “He was let go by the club and was sweeping up on his own on his last day with tears rolling down his face. Nobody did anything for him, despite all the years he had given to the club.” — Mark Ogden
Man United continue to flip-flop over Ten Hag
The Manchester United squad left Wembley after May’s FA Cup final win against Manchester City expecting to start preseason under a new manager. Some were expecting Gareth Southgate, England manager at the time, to be appointed before the squad flew out to the United States for the preseason tour in late July. But after 2½ weeks of intense deliberation, Ratcliffe and his senior United executives decided to retain Ten Hag as manager despite concerns about his ability to do the job on and off the pitch.
“Erik is very blunt and direct,” a source told ESPN. “He’s fundamentally an honest guy, but he had to be told last season to soften his approach with the players. He was too critical too often, but sometimes it was down to his use of English.
“He speaks the language, but he doesn’t have a great grasp of it or the nuances. For instance, he pissed off Casemiro last season for saying he was dropped for ‘football reasons.’ Erik meant ‘tactical’ reasons, but he ended up angering a multiple Champions League winner by suggesting he was criticising him as a footballer.”
Ten Hag’s handling of Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford also caused disharmony within the squad. While there was initial support among the majority of the players for the decision to discipline Sancho for a social media outburst after the winger was dropped from the first-team dressing room, sources say the treatment was soon regarded as heavy-handed and displayed a lack of flexibility on Ten Hag’s part.
Sources have told ESPN that Rashford’s loss of form and focus last season was not helped by Ten Hag regularly criticising the player in media interviews — again partly exacerbated by his limited grasp of English.
Some players struggled to boost their confidence under Ten Hag’s hardline approach, and sources have told ESPN that one senior player asked low-level members of staff to give him motivational talks before games to help his morale.
Although Ten Hag kept his job after the FA Cup win, he would only survive as part of a reshaped coaching team. Mitchell van der Gaag, Steve McClaren and Benni McCarthy, all appointed by Ten Hag on his arrival from Ajax in the summer of 2022, left the club, with several coaches hired in their place.
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Why Hutchison thinks Thomas Frank is a perfect Man United manager
Don Hutchison explains his number one pick to replace Erik ten Hag at Manchester United, should the club decide to remove the Dutchman from his role.
Ten Hag returned to the Netherlands to recruit Go Ahead Eagles coach Rene Hake, who he had worked alongside at FC Twente, while former United forward Ruud van Nistelrooy, whose senior coaching career was limited to a season in charge of PSV Eindhoven in 2022-23, returned to Old Trafford as assistant manager. Van Nistelrooy had no previous working relationship with Ten Hag, but his arrival in the summer saw him make an instant impact.
“Ruud looks like a manager, and he acts like one too,” a source told ESPN. “He has one-on-one meetings with players and there is certainly an aura about him. Nobody will say it, but if he became manager at United, nobody would be surprised.”
Van Nistelrooy, who scored 150 goals in 219 appearances for United from 2001 to 2006, is also hugely popular with the supporters. After the 3-3 Europa League draw away to Porto in October, Van Nistelrooy was the last person to leave the pitch after the nonplaying substitutes performed their postmatch warm-down, with the 48-year-old applauding fans who stayed behind to sing his name.
Ten Hag’s preference of training in Manchester and flying out to a European venue in the late afternoon is not dissimilar to coaches at other teams, but sources have said players were “unhappy” at having to stay overnight in Porto after the game and return to Manchester on Friday afternoon.
“They just want to fly home, sleep in their own beds and then train in the afternoon,” a source said. “But they landed [back in England] during rush hour, and then had to travel to Birmingham the following day for the game at Aston Villa.”
United then played out a dismal 0-0 draw at Villa in front of Ratcliffe, Brailsford, Berrada, Ashworth and Wilcox, extending the team’s winless sequence to five games. After the match, Ten Hag talked of United keeping a fourth clean sheet in five games, insisting that the more worrying statistic of just five goals in seven games would soon be improved when his team takes its chances.
It was a hard watch for Ratcliffe and his executive team. Despite Brailsford’s early promise to make things better, everything seemed to have gotten worse. — Ogden
United’s stadium woes persist
There was a theory when the Glazers announced their “strategic review” in November 2022 that the motivation behind the decision was a realisation that facilities like their Old Trafford stadium and their Carrington training area were falling well behind, and that they didn’t have the money to make improvements. Richard Arnold, the former CEO, said as much when he set up an impromptu meeting with disgruntled fans at a pub close to his house in June 2022.
“For the future, investing in a new stadium and a latest-and-greatest training ground, we’ve got to do something,” he said. “We’ve got to get investors in. I need that to do what I want for the club. I’ve got to have more cash now because no club in the world has the money to build a new stadium. You either borrow it or invest it. The money has got to come from somewhere.”
It’s nearly nine months since the strategic review officially concluded and Ratcliffe completed his purchase of a minority stake, but the search for funds to rebuild Old Trafford is ongoing.
Sources have told ESPN that no decision has been made about whether to redevelop the current stadium or build a new one on the same land in Trafford. The task force set up by Ratcliffe — which includes Lord Sebastian Coe and Gary Neville — is expected to deliver its recommendation by the end of the year. The project could cost in excess of £2 billion, but it’s still unclear where the money is going to come from.
“We must look at all possible funding options,” COO Collette Roche told a fans’ forum in July. “It’s still early stages with no decisions made.”
Sources have told ESPN that Ratcliffe’s preference is to build a new 100,000-seat stadium in the footprint of Old Trafford to create a lasting legacy. However, there are concerns about how the history of United’s home since 1910 would be maintained. There was an initial proposal made as recently as the summer that Old Trafford could be downsized and used as a home for the women’s and youth teams, but discussions since have made it clear that the plan isn’t cost-effective.
United insist they won’t make any firm decisions about anything related to the stadium until supporters have been given a chance to voice their opinions, but the idea of creating a “Wembley of the North” in Manchester is proving easier said than done. — Dawson
What’s next for the women’s team?
Ratcliffe has been clear that every decision since his arrival — whether it be high-profile appointments or redundancies — has been taken with the aim of improving performances on the pitch. But already the club has been forced to defend itself against accusations that Ratcliffe and INEOS are interested in only the men’s side and not the women’s team.
Sources have told ESPN that there was dismay throughout the club that INEOS did not send a representative to Wembley for the women’s FA Cup final in May, a game United won to lift their first major trophy since the team was reformed in 2018. There was further criticism over the summer when the club decided to move female players out of their bespoke facility at Carrington to accommodate the men’s team while the training ground undergoes a £50 million revamp.
Around the same time, club captain Katie Zelem and England international Mary Earps left on free transfers.
United have insisted they are “fully committed” to the women’s team, Roche says, while manager Marc Skinner has had to act as peacemaker between disgruntled supporters and club bosses.
“They genuinely love women’s football and have a real burning ambition for it to be in the forefront of their direction, that will only improve,” Skinner said in September. ”I know when the facilities are finished, we will only benefit from it. I can promise you that.”
United are still playing catch up with Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal, but they’ve started the WSL season positively with three wins from three games. — Dawson
Can United challenge for the title by 2028?
Ratcliffe has been consistent in his message that things will take time to get better. He followed through with his aim of bringing on board the best executives by hiring Dan Ashworth from Newcastle as sporting director, Jason Wilcox from Southampton as technical director and Omar Berrada from Manchester City as CEO.
Much of the responsibility to untangle the mess that came before and get United back to the top of English football lies with them. Ashworth will have a huge influence over recruitment, an area in which the club has failed spectacularly in the 11 years since it last won the Premier League title. Ashworth was happy with last summer’s transfer business, but there’s an acceptance that one window is not enough to fix a squad that has drastically underperformed.
Publicly, United have been reluctant to put a timeframe on exactly when they might be in a position to challenge for the title. However, in a call with staff earlier this season, Berrada said the aim is to win it by 2028 — the year in which the club will celebrate its 150th anniversary.
That gives Ratcliffe more than three seasons to fulfill his ambition of getting United back to where he believes they belong. It also shows how far United have fallen and the amount of work required to reverse a downward spiral that has been going on for more than a decade.