Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS have embarked on an unstoppable cost-cutting mission at Manchester United but asking FANS for £300m seems a step too far.
FANS service
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his friends over at INEOS have made a great many outwardly questionable decisions in the supposed name of financial sensibility at Manchester United recently. All manner of cuts have been made, generally to legends and icons in ambassadorial roles but also to the little people who dared to work from home or eat lunch at their desks.
But The Sun website has shed a light on their most ludicrous plan yet to establish economic sustainability.
There are a couple of red flags immediately apparent from this headline: ‘Man Utd ‘admit they ARE at risk of PSR breach and ask FANS to foot the bill amid £300m black hole in shock letter.’
Two ALL-CAPS warnings, a weird use of ‘amid’ and 22 of 23 words being contained within quote marks which quite obviously will not actually be quoting anyone. It’s not a great start.
The quote thing remains a maddening mystery, a bandwagon online media jumped onto long ago to create a paradox whereby churnalism trumps actual journalism, and both are beaten by simply just pretending to rehash someone else’s stuff. Take those quote marks out of the headline while changing nothing in the story and it somehow becomes less powerful and clicky, albeit far more reflective of a story in which at no stage do Manchester United ‘admit they ARE at risk of PSR breach and ask FANS to foot the bill amid £300m black hole in shock letter’.
Because that would be stupid, to ‘ask FANS to foot’ a £300m bill. Not even Ratcliffe at his big-brained, cut-administering caricature worst would request that supporters help them pay for the rest of Antony.
What United did write in a letter to a prominent fan group – and as is included in the final paragraph of The Sun’s story – was: ‘We do not expect fans to make up all the current shortfall – but we do need to look at our ticketing strategy to ensure we are charging the right amount, and offering the right discounts, across our products for our fans.’
Far be it for Mediawatch to defend Ratcliffe and Manchester United but no, they really aren’t ‘asking FANS to foot the bill amid £300m black hole’ whatsoever.
Time’s up
Manchester United did, of course, play a game of actual association football on Thursday evening, and The Sun sent Phil Thomas along. Unfortunately he was obviously notified too late to check their recent results first:
‘Tavernier’s downfield punt was nothing more than that – one hopeful hail Mary in search of salvation.
‘It came when Maguire shimmied and stumbled, Dessers darted and delivered and United were left appealing in vain for an offside flag which never came.
‘Neither would the points, so it seemed. Not any more. Those days of Fergie time and heroic late rescue acts have long gone, of course.’
A week earlier they beat Southampton 3-1 with Amad scoring a hat-trick from the 82nd minute onwards, including two goals in stoppage-time. Their previous win before then was against Manchester City when they were losing until the 87th minute before Bruno Fernandes and Amad scored. Prior to that they beat Viktoria Plzen with an 88th-minute winner.
But those days of Fergie time and heroic late rescue acts have long gone, of course. He invented late goals and sadly took the concept with him when he retired.
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Saw throat
There was representation at Old Trafford from the Manchester Evening News too. Tyrone Marshall gives us his first-hand account:
‘I saw what one Manchester United player did after dramatic winner vs Rangers – it said a lot’
What exactly did the Senior Football Writer see? The suspense is unbearable.
‘United’s players raced with Fernandes to the Stretford End corner flag, but Tyrell Malacia turned on his heels and ran to Martinez.’
Player celebrates goal with teammate who assisted it. It’s just a wonder it only ‘said a lot’ and didn’t speak volumes while revealing true colours.
READ MORE: Man United win in the only way they apparently now can and look set to dodge play-off punishment
Walker on sunshine
Any and all coverage of Kyle Walker’s imminent move to AC Milan obviously leads on the Annie Kilner and Lauryn Goodman angles but this is a strange line in Nick Pisa’s Daily Mail rundown of recent events:
‘Later on Friday he is expected to meet his new team-mates at a training session but he didn’t attend a party held by defender Theo Hernandez on Thursday.’
You mean he didn’t turn up to a party comprised solely of people he hasn’t even met? Walker arrived in Milan by private jet on Thursday and had ‘a day of medical tests and paperwork’. Of course he didn’t go to a sodding party he might not have even been invited to by people he doesn’t know.
Beautiful nightmare
There is some harrowing news for Arsenal on the Daily Mirror website, which reveals a ‘Champions League nightmare that could see Gunners drop to play-offs’.
They are third in the table with one game remaining and the top eight automatically qualify for the knockouts so this guarantees to be good.
But that isn’t the half of it, because there is indeed ‘a nightmare final matchday where results could wildly go against them’. And even that doesn’t do the following results necessary for Arsenal not to finish in the top eight justice:
- Arsenal fail to beat Girona, who have won one of their seven games in the competition so far
- Inter win or draw against Monaco or Monaco win and make up a goal difference of nine to Arsenal
- Atletico Madrid win against Salzburg
- Milan win against Dinamo Zagreb
- Atalanta win against Barcelona
- Bayer Leverkusen win against Sparta Prague and make up a goal difference of six to Arsenal
- One of Aston Villa, Feyenoord, Lille or Brest win and make up a goal difference of seven to 10
That is not a ‘nightmare’ scenario; it is unfathomable enough that Opta ran 10,000 simulations for the final fixtures of the Champions League group phase and it did not transpire once. Arsenal finished in the top eight each time. It would be incredibly hilarious but simply won’t happen and doesn’t really deserve headline prominence.
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