Gary Neville has described plans for a regenerated Old Trafford as “spectacular” as Manchester United look to improve their worn-out stadium.

Old Trafford has gone from one of the finest grounds in the country to being infested with rats as the Glazer family neglected the club’s home but improving Old Trafford has been a key goal of Sir Jim Ratcliffe since his Ineos company took over a minority share in February 2024.

Man Utd co-owner Ratcliffe set up a task force, chaired by World Athletics president Lord Sebastian Coe, to focus on improving Old Trafford with Gary Neville also part of the discussion.

Neville, who has a number of properties in Manchester, described plans for the new Old Trafford as “spectacular”

“I sat on the last task force committee meeting on Friday and I had a glimpse of what is coming and it looks absolutely spectacular,” Neville said during an interview with Ratcliffe.

The club has appointed architect Lord Norman Foster to oversee the plan which will improve not just the stadium but the surrounding area as well.

The club is supported by the UK government who backed the plans but Ratcliffe said any public money will be used on the area around the stadium rather than Old Trafford itself.

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As to why a renovation is key, the 72-year-old believes if Manchester United have aspirations to be the greatest club in the world, they need a stadium to match it.

“If you take the view that 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, do we? And we don’t have the new 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 at the world’s greatest club.”

On architect Foster, whose company designed the renovation of Barcelona’s Camp Nou, Ratcliffe said the fellow United fan was the best in the world.

“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 [design].

“It would be marvelous if Manchester United could go down that road and in five years’ time or six years’ time have that stadium. It would be fabulous.”

Man Utd co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has singled out Joshua Zirkzee for getting “knocked about” against Arsenal but backs the striker to come good.

The Red Devils have had a miserable season under Ruben Amorim after the Man Utd board made the decision to sack Erik ten Hag at the end of October.

Amorim has won just five of his 17 Premier League matches in charge of the Red Devils as his players struggle to get to grips with his style of play, philosophy and tactics.

Only five Premier League clubs have scored fewer goals than Man Utd this season with Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund coming in for a lot of criticism.

The duo have only scored five Premier League goals between them this season and Ratcliffe picked out Netherlands international Zirkzee for getting “knocked about” against Arsenal.

Man Utd co-owner Ratcliffe said in a wide-ranging interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap: “Look how Zirkzee got knocked about yesterday in the first-half, he really did get knocked about didn’t he?

“He wouldn’t have been used to that playing in the Italian league. It takes time for players to settle.”

When asked by Neville if he thought the summer signings like Zirkzee would ‘come good’ for the Red Devils, Ratcliffe replied: “Yes, yes I do.

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“But bear in mind we didn’t have the luxury of time to prepare for last summer. Jason [Wilcox, technical director] had been there three weeks, Omar [Berrada, CEO] three days.

“We had the problem with the coach [Erik ten Hag] – “Is it a yes or no? Are we involving the coach or not involving the coach?”.

“He didn’t sign [those players] but he did have a voice, which is why we [signed some] Dutch players.”

Ratcliffe went on to admit that the Man Utd decision-makers made a mistake by not choosing to sack Ten Hag in the summer.

The 72-year-old added: “It was the wrong decision. We made the wrong decision. It was an error. I suppose in that sense I regret it.

“It was quite difficult to extract in that season when we arrived, Erik’s performance from the structure around him. Difficult to see what environment Erik was operating in.

“Was it, in other words, was the erratic performance a function of Erik, or was it a function of the organisation? And we couldn’t really get to the bottom of answering that question with certainty, I suppose, so we gave Erik the benefit of the doubt.”

Manchester United chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe feels the exit of forward Marcus Rashford is “a good thing” as he also suggested that sales will help the budget available to Ruben Amorim in the summer.

Amorim made it no secret he was not a fan of Rashford when coming through the door at Old Trafford. The forward played six games for him, and was on the scoresheet three times.

However, the boss dropped Rashford for the Manchester derby in December, and he was not seen in a United shirt beyond that, with the manager citing poor training efforts as his reason against picking him, before Rashford was loaned out to Aston Villa in January.

United chairman Ratcliffe has suggested the forward’s exit from United is good for the player.

“He’s moved out of Manchester and maybe that’s a good thing for him. I am very pleased he is doing well,” he said.

“It’s good to see because he has got tremendous talent, but for whatever reason it wasn’t working in Manchester for the past couple of seasons. But he is a very talented footballer, Rashford.”

Ratcliffe also suggested that sales will boost the budget available to Amorim in the summer.

“There will be a budget for Amorim this summer. I’m not going to disclose it. Of course, that budget changes depending on who he might decide to sell because that would supplement the budget,” he said.

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Rashford is available to Villa at the end of his loan for £40million, and he has shown promise for the Midlands outfit so far, so there’s certainly a chance they take that opportunity.

Otherwise, there remain clubs being linked with the forward’s signature for if that move doesn’t happen.

A report in February suggested that United were hoping to sign Bayern Munich midfielder Aleksandar Pavlovic, and their preferred route to that transfer would be to offer up Rashford.

It was suggested there was ‘uncertainty’ over whether Villa would take up their option to land the United man, which could play into the Red Devils’ hands in potentially getting a promising player out of it.

READ MORE: Sir Jim Ratcliffe: Fact-checking the Man Utd co-owner’s interview bullsh*t

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.

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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.