As Jim Ratcliffe takes his seat at Old Trafford for the first time, here’s a guide that might help A TO Z
By Riath Al-Samarrai
JIM Ratcliffe will attend his first Manchester United game tomorrow since finalising his partial takeover.
Old Trafford will host Tottenham at a point when fresh eyes and investment are essential to United turning a corner after a decade of decline.
Here, Mail Sport runs through the A to Z of what Ratcliffe will find and what he needs to restore to a crumbling dynasty.
A AURA. What do rivals and fans think when they think of Manchester United? How is that different from what it was before 2013? How do they get back to that place where their name wasn’t a punchline?
B BRAILSFORD. Jim sees Dave as a sporting guru, but where is the evidence for such elevated billing? Brailsford was once viewed as a Svengali figure in cycling and the Olympic sector, where his reputation is now tarnished, and his forays into other sports have been distinctly underwhelming. He has as much of a point to prove as anyone at the club and marginal gains will not cut it in a place that requires wholesale changes.
C CAPTAINCY. Bruno Fernandes can be a fine player on his day but he is not a captain. He is not a leader. Give the armband to someone who can inspire those around him and not whine at every perceived injustice.
D THE DERBY. Look across town at Manchester City. They are the gold standard now. Redressing some of that balance will go an awfully long way, even if it is in the localised context of individual matches. Of the past six, City have won five by an aggregate of 18-6.
E ERIK TEN HAG. He has been there almost two years and after a promising first season has fallen off a cliff. He has restored a hard line on discipline, which is positive, but results stink, there is no discernible style of play, the dressing room has a number of jaded players and he has spent a small fortune on a team going backwards. Sticking or twisting on the manager is the biggest of Ratcliffe’s early decisions.
F FAT CATS. There have been murmurings from the prawn sandwich sector that some of the well-heeled are not getting enough bang for their buck from the corporate facilities at Old Trafford. Complaints range from some boxes being too far from their seats and toilet facilities not being up to scratch.
This is not the area that will invoke greatest sympathy but one where United might be falling behind. G GLAZERS. Time to parasite the parasites. Get them out from within. It is an over-simplification to blame the Glazers for all of United’s shortcomings (see R for recruitment), but they are the faces of indifference and neglect. Ratcliffe never set out to buy only 25 per cent — the club’s problem is that a family who never gave a damn still dwarf the new guy’s share. H RASMUS HOJLUND. If anything summed up the scattergun approach United have taken to plugging their gaps, it was the £70m signing of a 20-year-old striker (right) with a back injury. He has so far scored only once in the league and made greater impact in the Champions League — getting the best from that investment is key. He has the talent and desire, so requires the support and time to get it right. I IDENTITY. Does anyone know what United’s style of play is meant to be?
J JOHN MURTOUGH. He is the club’s football director and no doubt feeling quite uncomfortable at this moment. K KEEPER. Is Andre Onana the answer? Worryingly, the jury is still out.
L LEAKS. The roof has one job and it doesn’t do it. A useful metaphor for pithy A-Zs about United’s problems, but not so great for those who pay to stand under a torrent of Lancashire rain while watching bad football matches. M MASON GREENWOOD. That is a can the club kicked down the road. Their initial intention to keep him also betrayed the sheer absence of a moral compass. When it resurfaces in the summer with the expiration of his loan to Getafe, they cannot repeat the same ham-fisted, tin-eared manoeuvres of the autumn. N NEVILLE. Find a way to get Gary onside. The ubiquitous pundit has become one of the most influential of former United players and if they can find valid ways to impress him, they might just have half a chance in the hearts and minds mission.
O OLD TRAFFORD. The first of those two words sums it up. It is old. It is in disrepair and a relic compared to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. They can give it a makeover or take the £2billion route of starting from scratch — as with much of the United situation, the latter seems the smartest route. P PRESS. Banning outlets for stories you don’t like is never anything less than a bad look and the last resort of the desperate. Especially when those stories have more than a grain of truth to them.
Q QUALITY. It’s a broad requirement that we will funnel into one of the more offbeat shortcomings — United served some raw chicken at a corporate day in November and were consequently given one star out of five in the Food Standard Agency’s food hygiene rating.
Possibly led to some of the most
incisive runs at the club all season.
R RECRUITMENT. What a spectacular array of failures. Since 2014, United have spent an estimated £1.67bn on talent in return for winning one FA Cup, two League Cups, the Europa League, the 2016 Community Shield and reaching one Champions League quarterfinal. The recouped value when many of those players were sold was £481m. For all the ills of the Glazer regime, vast sums of money (not belonging to them, naturally) have gone on the team and the decisions have been woeful.
S THE OLD TRAFFORD SCOREBOARD. It’s a piddly little thing. Change it, though maybe wait until the numbers make for better reading.
T TRAINING GROUND. Cristiano Ronaldo was over the top with his criticisms — Carrington has been refurbished and is not the derelict ruin of his depictions. But it is still far behind the facilities at the likes of Tottenham and Chelsea.
U UNITED. United are anything but, and that is one thing Ratcliffe simply must fix — they have to pull in the same direction. That goes as much for the dressing room as it does for the staff in all departments who have grown exasperated by this malaise.
V RAPHAEL VARANE. He will be 31 in April and his £340,000a-week contract is up in the summer. United will only extend on lesser terms, which is reasonable for a player whose time there has been badly restricted by injuries, but decisions this next month are pivotal if they aren’t to lose a quality defender from a thin department for nothing.
W WAGES. After years of mass spending, United have to fit into the financial fair play straitjacket. Their wage bill is coming down but remains enormous — in excess of £330m according to last year’s accounts — and is loaded with dead weight on lengthy contracts. Casemiro (aged 31) is pulling in £350,000 a week and will do so until June 2026, with Varane not far behind on his basic pay. Factoring in Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Mason Mount, Fernandes and Antony, they are bloated with players earning in excess of £200,000 each week and not delivering. With less waste, signing Harry Kane would have been a possibility. X X-RAY VISION. Brailsford is a details man, or so they used to tell us before he seemed to take his eye off a few shady corners within his cycling operations. Now he needs to examine each root and branch.
Y YOUTH. United have used a homegrown player in every squad since October 1937 — a run that stretches beyond 4,000 consecutive games. It is a remarkable achievement that has endured during their decline. It is imperative that the new regime keep it going.
Z ZOO. For too long it’s felt like the monkeys are running the place. It needs a proper zookeeper to bring order. Jim Ratcliffe, are you that man?