According to reports, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is ‘exploring’ another cut as one of Manchester United’s ‘lease agreements’ has been ‘deemed too expensive’.

Ratcliffe completed his takeover of Man Utd at the start of 2024, purchasing a minority stake in the Premier League giants for around £1.25bn. He initially purchased a 28% stake but has since upped his share to around 29% with a further investment of £79m.

The INEOS chief is only a co-owner of Man Utd, but he took control of Old Trafford’s football operations after his first deal with the Glazer family was struck.

This was initially met with immense positivity, but Ratcliffe has swiftly become a hated figure at Man Utd as he’s sanctioned a brutal cost-cutting programme to raise funds.

Man Utd are second in our five-year Premier League net spend table and Ratcliffe needed to cut costs after inheriting a mess.

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Some of Ratcliffe’s cuts have been necessary, but others have been more harsh as he’s hiked ticket prices, sanctioned mass redundancies, axed Christmas benefits and payments to club legends and limited lunches for staff.

Now, a report from The Guardian claims Man Utd ‘may terminate the lease for their London offices to save money’.

Ratcliffe is ‘exploring’ this move as the current lease in Kensington has been ‘deemed too large and too expensive’.

Man Utd’s current lease in Kensington is due to last for ten years, but INEOS have ‘proposed’ an ‘early termination’ on this ‘agreement’.

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The report has also broken down the current ‘most likely course of action’.

‘United moved into the Kensington Building less than two years ago after the expiry of a 10-year rental agreement on another office building in Mayfair, but with Ratcliffe deciding that the vast majority of the club’s staff should be based in Manchester, the 23,000 sq ft space has been deemed to be too large and expensive.

‘In announcing a “transformation plan” last week that will involve between 150 and 200 redundancies, United committed to maintaining a presence in London, but the Guardian has learned this will involve looking for new premises.

‘While downsizing at their current office is also being considered, it is understood that moving out entirely two years into a 10-year agreement is viewed as the most likely course of action.

‘United’s offices in Kensington are located less than a mile from Ineos headquarters in Knightsbridge, but this convenience is unlikely to influence Ratcliffe’s thinking, which is based on making the club as financially efficient as possible.

‘Ratcliffe has often preferred to use his Ineos offices for United business since buying a 28% stake in the club 15 months ago, with Erik ten Hag’s fate as manager effectively sealed at a Knightsbridge summit in October involving the 72-year-old co-owner, the chief executive, Omar Berrada, the then sporting director, Dan Ashworth, and the technical director, Jason Wilcox.’

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim somehow responded to Wayne Rooney’s description of him as ‘naive’ without citing his managerial failures but did say: “I was a pundit when I finished my [playing] career. I know it’s really easy.”

The Portuguese boss could have mentioned his own two Portuguese titles in comparison to Rooney’s recent failures at Birmingham and Plymouth but resisted the urge to be catty.

Amorim was speaking after United exited the FA Cup on penalties to Fulham, a result which was more mundane than magic.

He said initially on BBC Sport after the match: “The goal is to win the Premier League. I know we are losing games but the goal is to win the Premier League again. I don’t know how long it will take. We have a goal and we continue forward no matter what.”

Rooney – working for the BBC as a pundit after being sacked by Plymouth on New Year’s Eve – commented: “I think it’s a little naive to say they’re looking to win the Premier League because from where they are now, they’re a long way off that.

“I think he’ll get time but it’s not a free hit because he’ll expect more from Manchester United than what we’re seeing since he’s been in. He says winning the Premier League, how can they compete? To get further up the table, I think that’s the next step for them.”

United are currently 14th in the Premier League table and their season now hinges on a Europa League campaign that sees them face Real Sociedad on Thursday.

Amorim was inevitably asked about Rooney’s comments in his wider press conference and said: “That (winning the Premier League) is the goal. To be naive is to think we are going to do it this season or be the best contender next season.

“I know in this moment, everybody knows everything. I was a pundit when I finished my [playing] career. I know it’s really easy.

“Maybe it is not with me but our goal, as a club, is to win the Premier League like we did in the past with all the great glories and legends of this club.

“We are in a difficult moment. And I’m not naive, that’s why I’m here, at 40 years old, coaching Manchester United.”

Amorim also faced questions about his goalkeeper Andre Onana, who made several mistakes in midweek against Ipswich Town and then appeared to dawdle over goal-kicks during the defeat to Fulham.

“It is also frustration for André, he is trying to read the team,” Amorim said. “Our team was so tired, we played the last game with one less player in the second half and he is using that time to rest a bit for us to go for the second goal.”

That second goal of course never came, despite United having 20 shots against Fulham at Old Trafford.

Former Premier League striker Alan Shearer has heaped praise on Man Utd youngster Chido Obi despite the Red Devils FA Cup exit against Fulham on Sunday.

The Red Devils have been struggling in the Premier League this term with Ruben Amorim’s side currently 14th after 27 matches of the season.

But they put in another disappointing performance against Marco Silva’s side at Old Trafford in the FA Cup with Fulham taking the lead through a Calvin Bassey header in the first half.

Bruno Fernandes then equalised on 71 minutes but the sides couldn’t be separated by extra-time and the Cottagers won on penalties, after Bernd Leno saved spot-kicks from both Victor Lindelof and Joshua Zirkzee to put Fulham through to the quarter-finals.

One of the only positives for Man Utd was the introduction of Obi with the Danish youngster replacing compatriot Rasmus Hojlund on 68 minutes.

Obi offered more than Hojlund did with former Newcastle striker Shearer impressed by the 17-year-old, who worked three shots compared to Hojlund’s one.

Shearer told the BBC: “He’s been a real handful in there you know.

“He’s certainly offered a lot more than Hojlund has when he was on the pitch. He’s been a nuisance and tough to play against.

“I like what I see from Obi, I really do. He’s certainly given them a different option to play with.”

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Man Utd boss Amorim felt Obi was “a little bit naive” but the Portuguese head coach was largely encouraged by the Dane’s performance against Fulham.

Amorim said after the match: “I think Chido did really well today. Of course, he was a little bit naive in some moments, but you felt that, inside the box, he wants the ball – something the strikers have and he has.”

Man Utd will face Real Sociedad in the Europa League on Thursday and Amorim admitted that Obi has a chance of starting against the Spanish side later this week.

Speaking in his post-match press conference, Amorim told reporters: “Anything can happen in the next games, and during training.

“‘We don’t have a lot to time to train, but we need to see the opposition, feel the moment of the player physically in this moment with a lot of games, because we are going to start playing Thursday-Sunday.

“We have a problem with goals. Today we create situations, but sometimes you feel that only in set pieces we are going to make some danger.”

Man Utd legend Wayne Rooney has leapt to the defence of Rasmus Hojlund despite the striker’s underwhelming season for the Red Devils.

The Red Devils are having a nightmare season in the Premier League with Ruben Amorim’s side currently 14th in the table after 27 matches.

Man Utd now have one competition left as they look to secure silverware this season after they exited the FA Cup on penalties to fellow Premier League side Fulham.

Performances and results have got worse since Amorim replaced Erik ten Hag in November and now their only hope of a trophy comes in the Europa League.

Man Utd have struggled to score goals in the Premier League this season with only five clubs scoring fewer than the Red Devils.

Hojlund – who signed from Atalanta for £72m in the summer of 2023 – has scored just two Premier League goals in 22 appearances for Man Utd this term, while Joshua Zirkzee has only scored three.

Both players have come in for criticism but Hojlund is now on a run of 18 matches without scoring in all competitions with mid-December the last time he hit the back of the net.

However, Man Utd legend Rooney feels sorry for the Denmark international and claims Hojlund is “getting no help” from his Red Devils team-mates.

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Rooney said: “With myself, I had good senior players around me. Sometimes I made mistakes and had a bad game but I had good players around me. Hojlund is getting no help.

“I think United play too slow, the ball speed is too slow, and for the centre-forwards they are just waiting around.

“Hojlund’s movement here is really good and he’s unlucky with this one. He has tried and is making runs in behind but United aren’t getting close to help.

“He’s trying to hold the ball and use his body, he is a little isolated. He needs someone he can lay the ball off too and he can then get back in the box.

“Not just Hojlund but Joshua Zirkzee has given up the ball too many times.

“There is not enough creativity and they are not holding up the ball for the midfielders and defenders to support them, it’s a bit of both.”

There were rumours last month that Man Utd now ‘fear’ that they will be ‘forced to keep’ Hojlund in the summer as they will struggle to find a buyer.

Chido Obi made an impact after coming off the bench to replace Hojlund on 68 minutes against Fulham – who eventually triumphed on penalties – and Rooney was impressed.

Rooney added on Obi: “What I’ve really liked about him is that he’s put himself in some really good positions.

“I’ve been really impressed by him. He looked like the one who could go on and nick it.”

Manchester United have been urged to offload Andre Onana as the goalkeeper is “useless” and there is an obvious replacement in the Premier League.

The Red Devils signed Onana from Inter Milan during the 2023 summer transfer window to replace David De Gea. He was handpicked by former boss Erik ten Hag as they previously worked together at Ajax.

Onana endured a difficult start at Man Utd as he made a few huge mistakes at the beginning of the campaign, but he grew into the season and was one of their better performers overall.

However, the 28-year-old has suffered a major dip this season and is currently ranked as the 15th best goalkeeper in the Premier League this term.

United are already linked with several potential replacements for Onana, who could be ‘living out his final months’ at Old Trafford. 

Ex-Man Utd defender Paul Parker wants his former club to replace Onana with Leicester City goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, who “has it all”.

“In an ideal world, Man United should buy a new goalkeeper to replace Onana. He’s just not good enough, and I don’t think he even looks like a goalkeeper at all,” Parker told Spilxperten.

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“Right now, I think Bayindir should get a chance, but in the long run, the club should go for Mads Hermansen, who has single-handedly kept Leicester somewhat afloat this season.

“I think he has it all. He’s a fantastic shot-stopper, he’s good with his feet, and he has a strong attitude.

“As a center-back, I would be scared to have him behind me, but in a good way, because he has such a strong aura.”

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Parker reckons Onana is “useless” and he’s made Man Utd’s decision to let De Gea leave “even more ridiculous”.

“The problem is probably that the goalkeeper position won’t be a priority for a new signing, as there are so many other issues in other positions that need strengthening,” Parker added.

“I can’t help but think about why the club let David De Gea go. It was a really disgraceful way they parted with him after he was named Player of the Year three times in a row, and right now, it looks even more ridiculous because his replacement is so useless.

“Another thing I really don’t like about Onana is his mentality. It doesn’t seem to bother him when Manchester United concedes a goal.

“You never see him standing there shouting or scolding his defense, like De Gea or Peter Schmeichel always did.

“For them, keeping a clean sheet was a matter of life and death. It meant everything to them.”

Manchester United are out of the FA Cup, the one tournament that over the last couple of years has provided significant respite and shelter from the abject sh*ttiness of literally everything else the club and team have been up to.

That is bad. But it’s not all bad. There is still good news to be found at United, if one is simply willing to search really hard for it through all the crud. We’re sure we can find five reasons for Manchester United to be cheerful.

After all, This Is Manchester United Football Club’s Reasons To Be Cheerful We’re Talking About.

Marcus Rashford’s value is increasing
Look at him there over at Aston Villa. Having a wonderful time, isn’t he? Looks like a man who has remembered a previously lost time when he actually truly loved football before the sheer relentless miserabilism of the club he adored robbed him of any joy.

Now admittedly this doesn’t yet sound like much cheerfulness for Manchester United, but we’re getting to that. Rashford having a brilliant end to the season – perhaps even winning the FA Cup that was once United’s, who knows – means his value will go up for the inevitable summer sale.

Villa will be interested, of course, but so will plenty of others if there remains a keen sense that he’s got his mojo back.

Think of all that lovely lucre to spend, and it’s basically free money because Rashford is a) an academy product and be) is neither wanted by nor wants to be at Manchester United. If that seems a grimly transactional way to view football then, well, welcome to 2025. It is what it is and we are where we are.

With a significant windfall from the sale of Rashford, there may be sufficient funds in the kitty for Sir Jim Ratcliffe and pals to make as many as three or four catastrophic multi-million-pound mistakes before they have to close the staff canteen altogether and replace it with a dusty and unreliable vending machine that sells nothing but out-of-date Kit-Kats for £2.60 a pop.

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The Fulham performance wasn’t actually that bad
Again, how much actual cheer to derive from this fact is open to debate. Should Manchester United ever really be satisfied with a situation where positives can and are being taken from a cup exit? Your mileage may vary.

But while United have managed to eke out the occasional result despite themselves because such is the financial lopsidedness of the Premier League that no matter how bad a wealthy team gets there are never any actual real consequences for them as a football team (see also: Tottenham) they have never really looked at all like a compelling or convincing team under Ruben Amorim.

They have never really even particularly looked like they understand what is being asked or expected of them.

Against Fulham, though, there really were tantalising glimpses of a coherent and functioning structure emerging from the chaos. Matthijs de Ligt was very good indeed in what was surely the best performance of his United career to date and the back three with Harry Maguire and Leny Yoro didn’t even look like one to fill you with complete hopeless despair and/or dread fear of imminent catastrophe.

Sure, there was another disastrous attempt to defend a corner in which United managed to be hopelessly second to the ball not once but twice, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and a coherent 3-4-3 wasn’t built in four months.

Even Christian Eriksen and Casemiro seemed to have their uses in a system that finally looked capable of exploiting De Ligt’s range of passing from deep and managed to avoid its usual trick of leaving United constantly appearing like a side playing with 10 men, forever and always seemingly stretched and one man short no matter whereabouts on the pitch the game happens to be at any particular time.

This is a low
Always a risk, this. We’ve had years and years of experience with Spurs of thinking ‘Well at least it can’t get any worse’ and then it subsequently getting much worse.

But we are ready to get hurt again. We are ready to say it. This is the low-water mark for United. Things are going to get better. They must. They will have at least a few more players next season who are capable of playing the football Ruben Amorim wants to play, and Ruben Amorim remains one of the best and brightest young coaches in the game.

Sure, the fact that United’s low point may well mean finishing somewhere between 14th and 16th in the Premier League and not winning anything is a sharper, harsher and darker bottoming-out than anyone might have expected, with United currently somehow far, far worse than any of the assorted terrible United sides we saw stink the place out under David Moyes or Louis van Gaal or Jose Mourinho or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Erik Ten Hag but maybe that’s the point.

Maybe the mistake those daft managers made was only taking United and making them quite bad rather than leaning totally into it and making them completely dreadful. What Amorim has so cleverly achieved is to completely rid the club of all hope and joy and confidence, to the extent that even rival fans who grew up despising United in the 90s and 00s are now very swiftly drifting from schadenfreude into something approaching pity.

We, um, we have slightly drifted again from the ‘cheerful’ remit here, haven’t we? But the point is only by taking United to the absolute lowest point imaginable can they truly be rebuilt into something meaningful. We’ve read enough superhero comics to know this is a foolproof strategy that will definitely work if everyone just sticks with it.

The Europa Invincibles
Unusually for a big club in this kind of existential crisis, United don’t necessarily need a trophy to paper those widening cracks and lift spirits and convince everyone everything will be all right.

And that’s because one of the undeniably great bits about Banter Era United is that this decade-long Banter Era they’ve endured has contained more silverware than most clubs muster in their entire existence.

It even includes a Europa League for crying out loud.

Erik Ten Hag’s United reign will be remembered as a terrible one, and yet both his seasons at Old Trafford saw the bulging trophy cabinet burdened with yet more baubles.

United win trophies despite themselves. And that means that winning a trophy while things appear to be going all manner of tits skyward won’t necessarily convince anyone inside or outside United that it’s the start of a meaningful journey of improvement. Everyone has heard this song before.

That said, it can’t hurt, can it? And no season in which you are second favourites for a competition in which the favourites are bloody Spurs can ever yet be entirely written off.

Especially when you are the one and only club across the Champions and Europa Leagues still unbeaten after the cumbersome league phase and play-offs. European Invincibles, is it?

Until the inevitable underwhelming 1-0 defeat at Real Sociedad on Thursday night, yes it is.

Manchester City are also rubbish
Sure, they’re not as rubbish as you, City having reached a Fergie-era United kind of level where finishing third constitutes an unthinkable crisis and yes we are again in danger of losing touch with the whole ‘cheerful’ idea and descending into reverie for lost days of swaggering dominance, but it’s not nothing, is it? City being this rubbish? Only having an FA Cup to show for their season and still technically a chance that they might not even win that?

At least the ol’ noisy neighbours are a bit quieter this year, eh? Been annoying haven’t they? But who knows, maybe if you’re really lucky when Pep Guardiola eventually decides to sod it all for a game of soldiers they might spend the next decade being as miserable as you are? That’d be nice? Yeah?

What’s that? Who? Liverpool? No, never heard of them. Are they any good?

Alan Shearer has questioned whether Ruben Amorim refusing to tweak his philosophy to suit the Manchester United players means he’s not doing his job at Old Trafford.

United were dumped out of the FA Cup by Fulham on penalties on Sunday, leaving them with just the Europa League as a chance of silverware this season as they sit in 14th place in the Premier League.

Amorim now holds the record for the lowest win percentage (31%) of any Red Devils manager in the Premier League era having replaced Erik ten Hag in November, but the Portuguese boss has refused to change his style and philosophy amid fierce criticism.

READ MORE: Man United crash out of the FA Cup to Fulham and it feels more mundane than magic

It’s 3-4-3 or bust for Amorim and it’s been bust far more often than not this season as his players struggle to adapt, but he’s adamant that his stubborn attitude will reap rewards in the long run, if and when he survives longe enough to see significant changes to the playing staff that will enable him to mould a team in his image that can win games of football.

But Shearer isn’t convinced, and wonders what a coach’s job is if not to get the best out of the players.

He said on The Rest Is Football podcast: “Isn’t a coach’s job to get the very best out of his players? I understand he has a philosophy but his players can’t play that way.”

Fellow pundit Micah Richards then asked Shearer what he would do if he was in Amorim’s position.

Richards said: “We’re saying that United don’t have the money to bring players in the summer [who can play Amorim’s style]. I’ll throw this one to you Alan, would you persist on playing the same way? What would you do in this situation?”

Shearer replied: “I get that he wants to play a certain way. It’s been successful for him in his young coaching career. But you also have to get the best out of your players and he isn’t at the minute because his players can’t do what he wants them to do. It’s blatantly obvious. I do sometimes think that they’re confused. Is that the best he can get them to play?”

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Shearer also wonders whether Amorim regrets his decision to swap Sporting for United, and if he had a grasp of just what a state the football was in before he joined.

He added: “I’d love to know Ruben Amorim’s personal thoughts because there’s no way that job description could’ve been sold to like it is now, in terms of they’ve got no money, they’re as bad as they are. He must be thinking, ‘wow, that state of the football club on and off the pitch, what have I done here?’ He must be thinking that.”