In Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s push to revolutionise Manchester United from relic to ruthless winning machine he possesses the vital element missing from the Glazers’ listless ownership: a searing will to do so.
As the controller of football policy and the largest minority shareholder, Ratcliffe has the executive levers to engineer change. The six Glazer siblings, too, have these. Yet in the decade between Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in May 2013 and Ratcliffe’s advent last Christmas Eve, there was scant intent from the majority shareholders to ensure United were best in class.
So far, the Ineos proprietor has shown himself to be the diametric opposite: a billionaire who, at 71, would not have wasted his time buying into the club if not deadly serious. The latest illustration comes via Marcus Rashford’s marginalisation and the for-sale-in-January tag placed on him. Along with Alejandro Garnacho, the forward was dropped by Ruben Amorim for Sunday’s 2-1 derby victory over Manchester City. Amorim explained the decision like so: “It is important the performance in training, the performance in games, the way you dress, eat, engage with teammates, push your teammates.”
The head coach said both would compete to feature in Thursday’s Carabao Cup tie at Tottenham and Sunday’s visit of Bournemouth. There seems to be short-term pragmatism regarding Rashford. Amorim sees a way back for Garnacho, but the local lad from Wythenshawe, whose relationship with his boyhood club has curdled, is deemed a footballer non grata, paving the way for his exit.
You do not have to be an Einstein to see why. A forward’s calling cards are goals and assists. Rashford’s numbers, with the exception of two seasons, have been underwhelming, so offloading him is a decision that might have been taken before.
In close to a decade in the first team, he has never scored 20 times in a Premier League season. Rashford’s career-high tally of 30 goals and eight assists in 2022-23 featured 17 goals in the league, the same as in 2019-20, when he ended with a total of 22 plus nine assists. Double figures in the league have been managed in only two other seasons: 2018-19 (10) and 2020-21 (11).
These are not elite figures comparable to Mohamed Salah, Harry Kane or Sergio Agüero, the quality of goalscorer required. This season Rashford has seven goals in 24 appearances. Last season, after signing a £365,000-a-week, five-year deal that made him the club’s highest earner, he returned a paltry eight goals and was demoted from the England squad.
Amorim, and Ratcliffe, have analysed the figures and put them together with Rashford’s post-derby defeat birthday excursion to the Chinawhite nightclub last October, which was described as “unacceptable” by the head coach’s predecessor, Erik ten Hag. They note, too, how Rashford, despite being disciplined “internally”, three months later reported ill for training on a Friday in January after allegedly being seen in a Belfast nightclub the evening before. Thirteen months earlier Ten Hag had dropped Rashford from the XI for a New Year’s Eve trip to Wolves. The offence: oversleeping.
There was also a flight to New York in last month’s international break as Amorim took charge. No rules were broken (and Casemiro flew further, to Florida) but these are all factors in the decision that Rashford should leave.
It all makes clear how determined Ratcliffe is to right the ills of United. “Messy” and “painful” are the terms offered by a highly placed employee to characterise the state of the club and “standards” and “commitment” are required to mend it, in the eyes of the 27.7% owner. The on- and off-field situation Ratcliffe inherited has dismayed him, and a greater-than-expected presence on club premises illustrates his drive.
Ratcliffe recruited Omar Berrada as his chief executive but is the de facto occupier of the position. Evidence came with Dan Ashworth’s departure by mutual consent last week after he had joined as Ratcliffe’s first sporting director only five months before. Ratcliffe proved unable to work with Ashworth so the decision was taken. If the billionaire was a less interested owner like the Glazers the disagreement would never have happened and Ashworth would probably still be in place.
Instead, Racliffe is running United on an almost day-to-day basis, and Ashworth is history, as will be Rashford next month if a suitor can be found who will take on his salary. The fact that only a small number of clubs are able to do so may give him a reprieve until the summer. But Ratcliffe, in his push for a cultural reboot, is willing to cut the club’s losses by not setting a prohibitive transfer fee, and a loan would be considered too.
United staff members characterise Ratcliffe as ruthless but fair. The 250 employees culled by him this autumn may take a different stance, but his counterargument would be that the redundancies were not personal and anyone let go was part of a bloated workforce running counter to the club’s interests. Ratclifffe has also courted unpopularity by raising ticket prices for members to £66, regardless of age, and he said, tellingly, as part of his justification: “We need to find a balance. And you can’t be popular all the time either.”
One thing is clear: the man born in Failsworth’s ambition to transform a 146-year-old institution. Whether he will be successful is not yet known. But Ratcliffe means business and, for fans desperate for United to be a force again, that offers hope.
