Manchester United already seem to be getting their mojo back if yesterday’s win against Everton is anything to go by. The gloomy Ten Hag has been replaced by a coach with passion and new ideas.
As forklift trucks ferried building materials across
Manchester United’s Carrington training centre this week as part of a £50mn
upgrade, another reboot got under way at one of the world’s most famous sports
teams. On Thursday Ruben Amorim made his debut at Old Trafford as United’s new
head coach, the latest move by Sir Jim Ratcliffe to restore the club’s fortunes
since his company Ineos acquired a 27 per cent stake in February.
In the months that
have followed, United have cut a quarter of the club’s staff, while Ratcliffe
has appointed his own people to all the top executive positions. Amorim’s
arrival is meant to be the final piece in the puzzle. While the Glazer family
still owns a controlling stake in United, this is now Ratcliffe’s
operation. “We have to improve as a club,” the 39-year-old
Portuguese coach said during his first press conference. “We will try to do it
our way. The Ineos way, and my way.”
Other key arrivals this year include chief executive Omar
Berrada, who joined from crosstown rivals Manchester City, and chief financial
officer Roger Bell, a veteran of Ratcliffe’s Ineos chemicals empire. Sporting
director Dan Ashworth was brought in from Newcastle United, while former Paris
Saint-Germain and Juventus executive Jean-Claude Blanc, who heads up Ineos
Sport, now sits on the United board and will represent the club at meetings of
the European Club Association. Joel and Avram Glazer remain executive
co-chairmen, but have taken a step back from day-to-day running of the
club.
Ratcliffe’s impact was evident in the club’s quarterly
accounts released this week. In the three months ending September 30, United
booked costs of £8.6mn related to redundancy packages as it reduced headcount
by about 250 people. The club has also recently ordered staff back to the
office five days a week and cut travel budgets.
The decision to sack Dutch head coach Erik ten Hag just
three months after extending his contract and bring in Amorim will lead to more
than £21mn of additional costs in future accounts, the club said this
week. Berrada said in the earnings release that cost and headcount
reductions “remain on track”, and that the club leadership was “committed to
returning Manchester United to the top of domestic and European football”.
Financial hits
United reported an operating loss in the period of £6.9mn,
as a lack of Uefa Champions League football and a shorter pre-season tour of
the US resulted in an 8.9 per cent drop in revenue to £143.1mn. The club’s New
York-listed shares currently trade at about $17, down 15 per cent since the
start of the year and well below the $33 paid by Ratcliffe as part of his
$1.3bn stake acquisition agreed on Christmas Eve last year. That deal valued
United at $6.3bn including debt, a record not just in football but across
global sport.
United spent more than €200mn on new recruits this summer:
the third highest in European football. In the past 10 years, United’s net
outlay on new players stands at €1.35bn, according to Transfermarkt, the
highest in the game and €300mn more than PSG, football’s second biggest
spender.
Yet performances on the pitch have not lived up to
expectations. United have not won the Premier League since 2013, when legendary
manager Sir Alex Ferguson retired. Amorim is the sixth coach to be given the
task of bringing back the glory days. Not all the changes introduced by
Ratcliffe and his Ineos lieutenants have been well received. One fan group said
this week that it would organise protests against a move to increase ticket
prices and remove concessions for children and pensioners.
Another group, the Manchester United Supporters Trust,
described the decision as “offensive” and called on United’s shareholders to
put in more of their own money if extra funds were needed. The club believes
the changes will only be felt by a tiny portion of match-going
supporters. Since the Glazers bought the club in 2005, United fans
have regularly protested against their ownership. United also faced criticism
when its women’s team was relocated to a group of temporary cabins at Carrington
this season to make way for the men’s team due to the renovation work at the
training centre.
Having put his team in place to run the club and its
football operations, Ratcliffe’s next big decision will be what to do about Old
Trafford, which regularly suffers from a leaking roof and has fallen behind
rivals in terms of premium hospitality. The club has appointed a task force,
which includes Lord Sebastian Coe and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, to
make recommendations in the coming months on whether to renovate one of the
most famous stadiums in the world or replace it.
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