McTominay, Zirkzee & Rashford - the five biggest mistakes Ineos have made at Manchester Unitedplaceholder image
McTominay, Zirkzee & Rashford - the five biggest mistakes Ineos have made at Manchester United | Getty Images
As Scott McTominay enjoys another moment of glory with Scotland, we look at how his departure ranks among Manchester United’s biggest recent mistakes.
Watching Scott McTominay score a magnificent bicycle kick to help Scotland qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1998, just months after he played a key role in winning a Scudetto for Napoli, made it hard not to think about just how much of mistake Manchester United made in letting him leave last summer.
McTominay’s old club are currently desperate for an all-action midfielder just like the one that has enjoyed such immense success since leaving Old Trafford, and that’s far from the only hole in a squad which may be starting to turn a corner under Ruben Amorim but which still looks to be some distance from challenging for the Premier League title.
Since Ineos bought a minority shareholding in United and took control of sporting affairs in February 2024, they’ve made a lot of controversial decisions – many of which now look like mistakes, so we decided to take a look at five of the biggest apparent errors made since Sir Jim Ratcliffe first took charge 19 months ago.
5. Spending £44.5m on Manuel Ugarte
Manchester United’s midfield has been something of a mess for a while now, and it’s an issue which has become increasingly evident since the appointment of Ruben Amorim, whose two-man system demands a great deal of players who don’t seem fully equipped to handle it.
Signing Ugarte wasn’t a terrible plan on paper – he was highly impressive at Sporting, even if he had struggled with PSG – but the grim reality is that they’ve spent the better part of £45m on a midfielder who has not come close to cutting the mustard.
One can debate quite why Ugarte has been such a let-down since leaving Portugal, but he appears to lack the dynamism and technique to make a difference on the ball and has started just two league games so far this season. Ineos inherited a team which had little room to make mistakes in the transfer market given the state of their squad, but this is one of several that they’ve been responsible for since taking charge. They should have wondered about his work in Paris a little harder before pulling the trigger.
4. Mishandling Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho & Jadon Sancho
In Ineos’ defence, the problems that have plagued the Manchester United dressing room pre-date their involvement at Old Trafford by years, and they can’t be blamed for the fact that so many players seem to have grown frustrated, unhappy and irritable there over the years. But they can, perhaps, be blamed for not fixing it, and for letting talented players leave rather than addressing the root causes of the problem.
There will be plenty of United fans that are glad to see the back of Alejandro Garnacho, who had a hissy fit when substituted by Amorim towards the end of last season, and of Marcus Rashford or Jadon Sancho, who had struggled for form for some time and seemed to have become malcontents. But it’s impossible not to wonder what could have been if things had been resolved behind the scenes successfully.
Rashford has been brilliant since leaving on loan, first to Aston Villa and now to Barcelona, and has rightly forced his way back into the England squad. Garnacho has scored two and provided two in his last four games and looks better than he has done since he first broke into the United team. Sancho… Well, granted, perhaps he’s just a little way beyond hope by now.
Either way, United have had several undoubtedly talented players on their books who had the proven ability to make an impact at the top level, and allowed them to become discontent with their lot, have their form slide off a cliff, and then be moved on. The biggest worry, however, is that the underlying issues which have caused this story to keep repeating itself may not have been addressed, and that it will simply happen again with another player and another until it is. Something in that dressing room causes gifted players to lose form, spark and self-belief and be unable to rediscover it. Speaking of which…
3. Spending £36.5m on Joshua Zirkzee
With the purchase of Ugarte, there was at least an excuse – while he was poor at PSG, he was (in theory at least) the kind of hard-working, ball-winning midfielder than they needed. Zirkzee, on the other hand, was a signing that never made sense in the slightest.
He was a hit at Bologna but that was while he was operating as something akin to a false nine, finding space down the channels and bringing the Italian outfit’s impressive attacking midfielders into play. That wasn’t what Erik ten Hag wanted when Zirkzee arrived, however, and he was immediately shoehorned awkwardly into a traditional number nine role that he had the physique but not the technique for.
Zirkzee struggled from the start, never looked convincing in a position that he was ill-equipped for and unfamiliar with, and hasn’t recovered his form since. Amorim’s system should, in theory, suit him better, but his confidence seems to be shattered and the likelihood is that he leaves at a substantial loss in the near future.
2. Why did Man United sell Scott McTominay?
It’s possible, perhaps, to be a little revisionist with McTominay. When at United he was not the least error-prone player in the squad, and wasn’t necessarily a model of consistency. That doesn’t change the fact that he was a player they sorely needed and have missed very badly since.
McTominay’s knack for scoring vital goals and winning games for both club and country isn’t new, and nor is his unquestionable work ethic. The only fundamental thing that has really changed since he left is his haircut.
Ultimately, United sold a player cut from cloth they’ve been trying to buy ever since and lost him for around half the money they spent on Ugarte, which doesn’t look like the best piece of horse trading right now and was a mistake which was compounded by the curious decision not to sign a central midfielder this summer when it was such a clear-cut need. Ineos have a lot to learn about how to conduct their transfer business.
1. Firing low-income workers while spending millions on bad players
Of course, clubs make mistakes in the transfer market all the time. United are scarcely unique in that, even if the number of potential errors they’ve made since Ineos took over is rather worrying. But not every club blows millions on ill-advised deals while making their own low-income employees – and fans – pay a tiny proportion of the bill.
Since taking over, Ratcliffe has overseen a clear-out of staff which has cost many people their livelihoods, dropped spending on staff expenses to the extent that the a £100 annual bonus for those who did keep their jobs was dropped to a £40 voucher, cancelled free meals and a Christmas party, and even increased the cost of disabled parking outside Old Trafford (not that they’re the only club guilty of that particular form of greed).
The rationale offered for this swinging behaviour was a need to cut costs, but since Ineos rolled out these cuts they’ve also spent an estimated £440m on transfer fees and posted record revenues of £666.5m. A few extra Christmas puddings and museum staff probably weren’t putting much of a dent in that.
It may have little impact on off-field performance but it eats into the heart of what a football club is meant to be about – a community institution which isn’t just an entertainment franchise looking to gouge their own employees to make a few extra quid. Selling a player like McTominay is a mistake, but for a billionaire like Ratcliffe to have made such sweeping cuts at a time when the club is earning more money than ever before is simply grim. Working out how to perform better in the transfer market may be easier than learning how to act with a little more humanity.
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