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Sir Jim Ratcliffe has spoken to media about a testing first year in charge of Man Utd.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has opened up on a variety of challenges he has faced in his first year in charge of Manchester United. The British billionaire has encountered a lot of issues at Old Trafford since he completed his purchase of a minority stake back in February 2024.
In his latest media appearances, the United co-owner opened up on the decision to sack both Erik ten Hag and Dan Ashworth, what he has made of Ruben Amorim as a replacement and the tight financial situation the club is still under. United have lost more than £300million over the past three years and are set to cut as many as 200 jobs later this year.
Ratcliffe also spoke about the plans to build a new Old Trafford, with a formal announcement from the club expected very soon. Here is a round up of all the biggest talking points from his latest interviews.
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“I think he’s done a great job in the circumstances, frankly, with the squad that he’s had available,” Ratcliffe said in an interview with The Times and Telegraph. “The fact he came in mid-season. Everybody expects miracles overnight. It’s not the way, not real life in my view. I mean, you saw the performance yesterday (against Arsenal). It was, I thought, a really impressive performance. They could not have worked harder. They couldn’t have been more committed.
“And if you looked at the names on the bench, there weren’t many you recognised, were there? Half the squad’s missing for Ruben. If you look at the top eight players in terms of salaries in Manchester United, 50 per cent of those are not available to Ruben. You’ve got Mason Mount, you’ve got Luke Shaw, Marcus Rashford has gone, and Jadon Sancho (on loan at Chelsea). And he’s got a bunch of other injuries as you know, so I think he’s done a fantastic job.
“I think coaches are emotional and Ruben’s no exception to that," he added. "And he’s a young coach. And he’s not perfect. You know, he’s not a guy who … he’s got to be good on the stage, but we want him to be good on the grass. And part of that is life on the stage, isn’t it? I really, really like Ruben. He’s a very thoughtful guy. Every time I go to the training ground, I speak to Ruben. I sit down and have a cup of coffee with him and tell him where it’s going wrong, and he tells me to f**k off. I like him."
Manchester United overpaid for some players
"If you look at the players we are buying this summer, that we didn't buy, we're buying Antony, we're buying Casemiro, we're buying Onana, we're buying Hojlund, we're buying Sancho," Ratcliffe told the BBC. "These are all things from the past, whether we like it or not, we've inherited those things and have to sort that out.
"For Sancho, who now plays for Chelsea and we pay half his wages, we're paying £17m to buy him in the summer. Some are not good enough and some probably are overpaid. But for us to mould the squad that we are fully responsible for, and accountable for, will take time. We've got this period of transformation where we move from the past to the future. There are some great players in the squad as we know, the captain is a fabulous footballer. We definitely need Bruno (Fernandes), he's a fantastic footballer."
A new stadium teased
"It's definitely deliverable but I think it needs to be set in context again," he told Gary Neville. "It's the greatest football club in the world. Then if it's going to build a new stadium it should be a new stadium that's befitting the greatest club in the world and also a stadium that befits the greatest league in the world. Because the Premier League is the greatest league in the world.
"And at the moment, if you look at the Premier League, we've got some great stadiums but we don't have a Bernabeu and we don't have a Nou Camp, we don't have that in the Premier League, although it's the greatest league in the world. And also, if you look at the north of England, the north of England has won 10 Champions League finals and London has won two. So there's quite a few reasons there to have the world's most iconic football stadium in the north of England and at the world's greatest club.
"I won't say much more but Norman Foster, who also is a Mancunian and is the world's greatest architect in my view, has really created the most iconic - well you've seen it (the design) - absolutely incredible. It would be marvellous if Manchester United could go down that road and in five years' time or six years' time and have that stadium."
Why Erik ten Hag and Dan Ashworth were sacked
“I mean, the Erik thing is slightly mitigating," he also told The Times and Telegraph. "There was quite a lot of debate about that at the time. It wasn’t just the FA Cup final. The fans were clearly of the view that we’d like to stick with him and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, they were both mistakes. I don’t think we can say much more than that.
“It’s a journey and there’s a lot of decisions that we have to make over the course of that and we’re not going to get them all right. I don’t think in the future we’ll get them all right either because we’re not perfect.”
Manchester United could have ran out of money
"If you look at the numbers, the numbers were fairly scary, really," Ratcliffe told The Times and Telegraph. "Because they'd sort of lost control, I think, of where the ship was headed. And the costs had got out of control. If you think of it in really simple terms, you've got the operating costs, which are all the staff and the fixed costs of running the business. And then you've got all the squad costs, player salaries and player purchases.
"In super simple terms, the club has been spending more money than it's been earning now for the last seven years, and it ends in a very difficult place. And for Manchester United, that place ended at the end of this year, the end of 2025, with the club running out of cash. I think it's the first time we've probably said that in public, but that's the fact of the matter. There's no money left in the club. And that is after my 300million."
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Related topics:Jim RatcliffeJadon SanchoLuke ShawCasemiroMarcus RashfordOld TraffordPremier LeagueErik ten Hag
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