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 fall-out 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, back in February. The 71-year-old has had to justify ending Ferguson’s role as a £2m-a-year ambassador as part of wide-ranging cost-cutting measures implemented across the board.
Former club captain Eric Cantona labelled the move “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 like 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’s only a few months since United said the Dutchman was the best man for the job and extended his contract by an extra 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
Around the same time, both 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, says Roche, while manager Mark 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.
Lots 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 they 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 which 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 which has been going on for more than a decade.
