Top 5 Ways Sir Jim Ratcliffe Can Help Get Man Utd Back On Track

The Manchester-born tycoon, Sir Jim Ratcliffe will assume charge of the Red Devils’ football operations once his 25% ownership is approved and he has a lot of issues to resolve.

The takeover issue involving Manchester United is finally coming to a close. If the club’s board of directors votes in favour on Thursday, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS will soon acquire a 25% interest in the organisation.

READ ALSO: When It Rains It Pours! Why Man United Couldn’t Fix Old Trafford’s Leaky Roof 

It is not the outcome that many supporters had hoped for when it was revealed in November that the club was considering “strategic alternatives,” which included the possibility of a full sale. The much-despised Glazer family will still be in charge.

However, following a decade of deterioration under the Glazers’ watch, INEOS have a history of working in elite sport and are certain to change things up at Old Trafford. And their arrival coincides with United’s terrible start to the season, which has seen them drop to 10th in the Premier League standings and last in their Champions League group after losing both of their first two games.

THEEAGLE examines all the issues Ratcliffe and the INEOS group will have to deal with in order to improve United’s performance:

Modernise Old Trafford

United’s stadium is still the largest club ground in Britain and one of the largest in Europe, but due to a lack of investment, its status has severely declined. The capacity was increased to 75,000 with the last significant improvement, which was completed in 2006 and planned prior to the Glazer acquisition.

The only modifications made since then have been the occasional coat of paint or the successful installation of Wi-Fi. Since the early 2000s, the scoreboards have not altered, and there are no video screens. Even more concerningly, the Stretford End’s roof frequently leaks during Manchester’s periodic downpours. While the concourses become tremendously congested at halftime and occasionally feel hazardous, the seats also feel claustrophobic.

The stadium is increasingly out of date, especially when compared to the gleaming new stadiums of Manchester City and Liverpool as well as Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham. It came as no surprise that City’s Etihad Stadium was selected to host Euro 2028 matches rather than the Theatre of Dreams, which will increase its capacity to 60,000 spectators after its next renovation.

Ratcliffe reportedly wants to extend Old Trafford’s capacity to 90,000. However, if he wants to improve the stadium’s reputation abroad, he will need to invest significantly in much more than just adding seats. Santiago Bernabeu’s modernization by Real Madrid is expected to cost up to €1 billion (£868 million/$1.05 billion), even without the addition of more seating, while Camp Nou’s renovation by Barcelona is anticipated to cost up to €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion/$1.58 billion).

Refresh the club hierarchy

Ratcliffe and his new staff will focus on a number of personnel issues in addition to player recruitment. After working in the club’s commercial division, chief executive Richard Arnold was promoted to the position. For how he handled the Mason Greenwood problem, Arnold has received criticism.

John Murtough, the sporting director, entered the position in 2021 with no prior experience and has overseen three summer transfer windows with varying degrees of success. Some of the signings that went badly under his direction include Sancho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mount, Antony, and Andre Onana.

According to reports, Ratcliffe is thinking of making a number of changes to the club’s executive team, including appointing Paul Mitchell as his new sporting director, which would be bad news for Murtough. Son Heung-min, Dele Alli, and Kieran Trippier were all signed by Mitchell, who worked with Mauricio Pochettino at Southampton and later Tottenham. Since then, Ratcliffe’s home is Monaco, and he has worked for both clubs.

Improve player recruitment

In a 2019 interview with The Times, Ratcliffe launched a frank criticism of the team, offering a preview of what his United administration may entail. Ratcliffe criticised the club’s hiring practises as United struggled through Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first full season in charge. The focus of his criticism fell on Fred, who had been acquired for £50m the year before.

“United have spent an immense amount since [Sir Alex] Ferguson left and been poor, to put it mildly. Shockingly poor, to be honest,” Ratcliffe said. “They haven’t got the manager selection right, haven’t bought well. They have been the dumb money, which you see with players like Fred.

“We have a different approach here [at Nice], to be moderately intelligent about it. Try to do it more grass roots, trying to locate young talent. Some clubs seem to have an ability to do that, Southampton, Lille. United have done it really poorly. They have lost the plot.”

United has not only made poor purchases; in recent years, they have also established the unsettling practise of paying huge fees for players and then letting them leave for virtually nothing. Last summer, David de Gea left for free, Fred left for £8 million, and the club was unable to get any respectable offers for Harry Maguire, Scott McTominay, or Jadon Sancho.

Meanwhile, their rivals have been successful in selling well. Even though they purchased Erling Haaland, Manchester City was still able to make money off of transactions in 2022, and they have transformed their academy into a money-making machine.

Ratcliffe and INEOS sporting director Sir David Brailsford will have to revamp United’s recruitment network, ensuring they have a wide pool of players to choose from and are not taken for a ride, like they were when paying £60m ($72m) for Mason Mount pver the summer or £85m ($103m) for Antony in 2022.

Strengthen the academy

The club’s academy would be a good place to start if Ratcliffe wanted to draw in outstanding young players. Since 1937, every matchday team for United has included a member of the academy. Despite this great legacy of developing young talent, United has lagged behind City in recent years.

The demand for City academy graduates is so great that the club was able to command exorbitant prices for players like Cole Palmer, James Trafford, and Carlos Borges in the summer despite the fact that they hardly made an appearance for Pep Guardiola’s team.

Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo are the latest success stories of United’s academy, but there’s no doubt they have a lot of work to do to compete with their counterparts. Part of the problem is having a training ground which, rather like Old Trafford, has had a lack of investment in recent years, as Ronaldo decried in his infamous interview with Piers Morgan.

If Ratcliffe can convince United to invest in their future, the club will be handsomely rewarded down the line.

Get the fans on side

It shouldn’t be difficult for Ratcliffe to win over supporters since he was many fans’ top choice to take over the club as owner when discontent with the Glazer family began to grow in the summer of 2022. The billionaire watched the 1999 Champions League final in Barcelona and referred to it as “my most extraordinary football memory”; he grew up in a council estate in north Manchester, just one mile from the site where United was first established as Newton Heath LYR Football Club.

However, the reality is many fans started to turn against Ratcliffe when it emerged he was only interested in partial ownership and doing a deal which led to the Glazers remaining on board, unlike rival bidder Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani, who wanted to buy the club outright.

The 25% stake he is expected to acquire, after initially aiming for a 69% stake and then a 50% stake, is only going to enrage more people since it still keeps the American family in charge. His flattering descriptions of the Glazers as “charming” and “very nice” have further damaged his reputation among many of his fans.

He must make amends for that. Ratcliffe is known for interacting with Nice fans in France, so if he appears in public, attends games frequently, addresses the fans advisory board and other supporters groups, and shows that he is dedicated to turning the club around, it shouldn’t be difficult to win back support.