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Having completed the purchase of his minority stake in Manchester United back in January, Sir Jim Ratcliffe appears to be on something of a mission to clean house at Old Trafford.
The British billionaire founder of global petrochemical giant INEOS acquired oversight over footballing and strategic matters at United with his £1.2bn deal, which while saw the deeply unpopular Glazer family hold on to power, at least brought about a change in direction.
A new CEO in Omar Berrada, and a soon-to-be new sporting director in Dan Ashworth, a role that has been so negligently overlooked by United in recent years, have been strides taken forward. He has also been forthright in his desire to see a ‘Wembley of the North’ created where Old Trafford stands, addressing a need that has also been woefully ignored by the Glazers.
In terms of unacceptable standards, Manchester United’s chastening 4-0 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace on Monday piled yet more pressure on boss Erik ten Hag, with United now at risk of missing out on any kind of European football next season despite a wage bill and transfer spend that should have delivered far more than it has.
The Dutchman’s future has been the subject of much scrutiny for some time, but despite a bruising campaign he remains in situ for now, while there has also been rumoured interest in his services being wanted by German giants Bayern Munich as they look to next season without Thomas Tuchel, and focus on wrestling back the Bundesliga title from Bayer Leverkusen.
Sky Sports claimed that Bayern had ‘touched base’ with Ten Hag’s agent, Kees Vos, to see whether there was any interest in him becoming Tuchel’s successor.
The hope of Champions League football was gone some time ago for United, and treading water until the end of the season and re-evaluating is likely the preferred course of action, especially if there is the potential that a club could come in and take a manager away who the club would be willing to part with, avoiding a costly settlement of more than £10m in the process.
