Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher
Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher (Image: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Ineos' start to life as co-owners of Manchester United could not have gone much worse. That is the brutal verdict of former Liverpool defender and Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher, who believes the poor start to Sir Jim Ratcliffe's time at the club needs to "change really quickly".
United are currently 13th in the Premier League table, their lowest position after 15 matches in the Premier League era and have lurched from one PR disaster to another since Ineos became co-owners of the club at the start of the year.
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Amid a number of redundancies at United off the field, United decided to offer Erik ten Hag a new contract as manager after the club's lowest ever Premier League finish last term, only to sack the Dutchman in October.
Sporting director Dan Ashworth, who United paid millions to prise away from Newcastle in the summer, was shown the door last weekend after a summer spend of around £200million in the transfer market has failed to improve the team's fortunes.
Ruben Amorim has since replaced Ten Hag as the club's new manager and although results initially improved, two successive defeats have coincided with fan anger over Ineos' decision to raise ticket prices.
With all that in mind, Carragher believes the "optics" of the whole situation are "awful" and has urged the ownership to improve things at Old Trafford quickly.
"The optics are awful," Carragher told Sky Sports News. "Who knows, in the future we might look back and think [getting rid of Ashworth] was the right decision, but when you look at it from the outside, it doesn't look good.
"Since Ineos came in, I'm not sure it could have gone much worse. They won the FA Cup, but they kept the manager, who they didn't really want, and spent £200m in the transfer market.
"Right now they find themselves in the lowest position they've been at this stage of the season. They've had to sack a manager early in the season and the sporting director [Ashworth] who they chased from another Premier League club, and obviously they paid big money for him in sporting director terms, now he's gone a few months later.
"If you're a Manchester United fan, that initial joy of someone else being in charge and it not being the Glazers, it was almost anyone but the Glazers, I don't think it's been a great start at all.
"It's been really poor from Jim Ratcliffe and the Ineos team, and it needs to change really quickly."