March 11 – Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has delivered a scathing assessment of the club’s current squad, branding several high-profile players as “not good enough” and “overpaid”.
Ratcliffe’s name-and-shame hit list singled out €387million-worth of talent including Casemiro, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Rasmus Højlund, and André Onana.
“If you look at the players we are buying this summer, that we didn’t buy, we’re buying Antony, we’re buying Casemiro, we’re buying Onana, we’re buying Højlund, we’re buying Sancho,” Ratcliffe said in an interview with the BBC. “These are all things from the past, whether we like it or not, we’ve inherited those things and have to sort that out.
“For Sancho, who now plays for Chelsea [on loan] and we pay half his wages, we’re paying £17m to buy him in the summer. It takes time for us to move away from the past into a new place in the future.
“Some are not good enough and some probably are overpaid, but for us to mould the squad that we are fully responsible for, and accountable for, it will take time. We’ve got this period of transformation where we move from the past to the future.”
Alongside on-field concerns, Ratcliffe is making sweeping financial cuts, with another 200 redundancies set to bring the total job losses at the club to 450 since he took over last February. Cost-cutting measures have also included closing the club canteen, scrapping free staff lunches, and raising the minimum ticket price across all categories to £66.
“Manchester United would have run out of cash by the end of this year – by the end of 2025 – after having me put $300m [£232.72m] in and if we buy no new players in the summer,” Ratcliffe said, explaining the decisions. “We are in the process of change and it’s an uncomfortable period and disruptive and I do feel sympathy with the fans. The simple answer is the club would run out of money at Christmas if we don’t do these things.”
Ratcliffe also defended his stated focus on the men’s side over the women’s team. “Of our £650m of income, £640m of that comes from the men’s team and £10m comes from the women’s team,” he said. “With my business background you tend to focus on the bigger issues before you focus on the smaller issues.”
Despite the commercial boost from the front-of-shirt partnership with Snapdragon, as unveiled in their financial report for 2024, the club’s spending on managerial upheaval has been costly since Ineos took charge.
The latest results included £14.5 million in “exceptional items,” covering the £10.4 million paid to sack Erik ten Hag and his coaching staff, as well as the £4.1 million cost of hiring and then firing sporting director Dan Ashworth within just five months. United’s co-owner acknowledged mistakes in the club’s management.
“I agree the Erik ten Tag and Dan Ashworth decisions were errors,” Ratcliffe said. “I think there were some mitigating circumstances, but ultimately they were errors. I accept that and I apologise for that.
“If you look at the time we made the decision about Erik – the [new] management team hadn’t been in place for more than five minutes. It became clearer three months later and we got it wrong. We corrected it and we are in a very different place today.”
He might not be totally correct. Manchester United are now in 14th place in the Premier League- exactly the same position as the day ‘mistake’ Erik Ten Hag was sacked five months ago.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at moc.l1741762796labto1741762796ofdlr1741762796owedi1741762796sni@g1741762796niwe.1741762796yrrah1741762796