Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe put his head above the parapet on Monday to answer questions from Gary Neville and others on the on and off-field mess he’s overseen for the last year at Old Trafford.
He admitted to “a couple of errors” having made at least 17 of them, claimed Ruben Amorim is doing an “excellent job” and continues to provide an “umbrella” for the Glazers.
After some fact-checking we’ve called him on five instances of bullsh*t.
The ‘salary bill’ whataboutery
“I think what he’s got out of the players he’s got available, I think he’s done well with,” Ratcliffe clarified having claimed Ruben Amorim is doing an “excellent job”.
“Do you?!” Gary Neville replied in shock, and before he could figure out how to frame a next question that didn’t hint at the Manchester United co-owner knowing sweet f*** all about football, Ratcliffe engaged in some very flawed “salary bill” whataboutery.
“If I look at the salary bill of the squad that’s available to him, that salary bill is not the salary bill of Manchester City or Liverpool, it’s a fraction of it.
“If you look at the salary bill of the players that are available to him that are not injured, or not out on loan, because we’ve got, you know, we’ve got Antony out on loan, we’ve got [Jadon] Sancho out on loan, we’ve got [Marcus] Rashford out on loan, we’ve got Mason Mount who hasn’t really played in the last two seasons, we’ve got Luke Shaw who hasn’t played in the last two seasons.
“So if you modify our salary bill for the players that are not available to Ruben, then our salary bill ranks us about, you know, middling, second half of the table. We’re sort of level with the likes of a Nottingham Forest or Everton, not a Manchester City one.
“That salary bill, if you look at that salary bill, is probably about £130m, and we’re talking about Liverpool who’s got a salary bill of £200m, Manchester City have got a salary bill of £300m, so that’s the squad that Ruben’s playing with.”
Manchester City’s salary according to Capology is £223m and even according to Ratcliffe’s caveated United salary bill, £130m still puts them above Liverpool (£129m) and all other Premier League clubs other than Arsenal (£179m) and Chelsea (£161m).
They are not “sort of level” with Everton (£72m), and certainly not with Nottingham Forest (£55m), who are currently 11 places and 16 points above Ratcliffe’s United.
‘A couple of errors’
Ratcliffe essentially admitted to the “couple of errors” it was impossible to shirk the blame for. There is simply no way that handing Erik ten Hag a new contract and hiring Dan Ashworth before sending him packing after five months could have been dressed up to be anything other than massive blunders.
But we would probably have brought up one or two of his other 17 mistakes at Old Trafford had we had the opportunity to conduct the interview, including the club’s policy of contacting family members of the recently deceased to enquire over the status of their season tickets, and we would definitely have gone armed with a picture of former Manchester United captain Katie Zelem to see if he now knows who the bloody hell she is.
When asked if he wanted to clear up the Zelem reports, Ratcliffe answered: “No, not really.”
Four of the top eight earners not available
“If you look at the top eight players in terms of salaries in Manchester United, 50% of those are not available to Ruben.”
Technically correct. Marcus Rashford (£300k per week), Mason Mount (£250k), Jadon Sancho (£150k) and Luke Shaw (£150k) are all currently unavailable. And pointing out that “half of Liverpool’s cream would be gone” (though we may use a different turn of phrase) if Arne Slot faced similar problems is fair enough as their top eight features Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alexis Mac Allister, Alisson and Ryan Gravenberch, but to namecheck Manchester City in similar terms given they’ve been without Rodri, Kevin De Bruyne and John Stones for big chunks of the campaign was odd.
And it was also convenient not to have mentioned second-placed Arsenal given Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are all in their top eight earners.
‘Progress’ under Amorim
Having described Erik ten Hag’s reign as “erratic”, Ratcliffe claimed that after a “difficult start” under Amorim we’ve seen “progress”.
Nonsense. If anything, after a decent start results have deteriorated. Manchester United won four and drew one of their opening seven games under Amorim, with the only defeats coming against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, both of whom look set for Champions League football next season. They’ve won just seven of 19 games since.
MORE ON THE RATCLIFFE INTERVIEWS ON F365
👉 ‘Do you?!’ – Neville baffled by Ratcliffe’s Amorim assessment amid Man Utd ‘salary bill’ whataboutery
👉 Ratcliffe admits Ashworth among ‘couple of errors’ as Man Utd chief makes ‘bust by Christmas’ claim
👉 Ratcliffe names five Man Utd players in ‘not good enough or overpaid’ admission
The Glazers ‘umbrella’
Banners saying “we want our club back” and “£1bn stolen” were on show as Manchester United fans protested the Glazers’ ownership on Sunday, referring to the amount spent on servicing the debt loaded on to United when the Glazer family bought the club in 2005.
United’s current total debt, including £300m in outstanding transfer fees – which Ratcliffe was eager to point out – is in excess of £1bn. In the last financial year they paid £37m in interest on the debt.
“It’s not the solution to keep throwing money at the problem,” Ratcliffe told Neville when asked about the lack of investment from the Glazers.
Sure, but the Glazers investing just £45m (or half an Antony) of their own money into Manchester United in two decades is criminal. The owners of newly-promoted Ipswich Town have put £83m into their club, Southampton’s owners have pumped £85m into the Saints and Bill Foley has put £93m worth of funding into Bournemouth.
In just two years, Todd Boehly and BlueCo have pumped £146m into Chelsea. Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners have invested £1.3bn into their club since 2008. Former Everton chief Farhad Moshiri invested £750m into the Toffees since 2016.
Rather than taking aim at the Glazers over the damage they’re clearly most at fault for, he poked fun at Ed Woodward and previous “management teams” for hiring a body language expert on £175k and making similarly lavish spending decisions.
“You’ve got to get the house in order. If you look at the reason the debt is at the level it is at the moment, that’s increased by £330million in the last four years because the club’s been spending so much more than it’s earning.”
That’s part of the reason, but it’s also got a lot to do with the Glazers not giving two shiny sh*ts about Manchester United. As Neville said, Ratcliffe is now “providing an umbrella over their heads” which should instead be folded and handed to the United fans for them to keep jabbing the Americans with.
