Former Premier League midfielder Jamie O’Hara “couldn’t believe” that Sir Jim Ratcliffe would take aim at his own Manchester United players by suggesting they are “overpaid”.
Ratcliffe has done the rounds with a series of interviews in regards to Manchester United. In one of them, he spoke on the money the club are currently paying out, and suggested some players were not up to standard and being paid too much.
“If you look at the players we are buying this summer, that we didn’t buy, we’re buying Antony, we’re buying Casemiro, we’re buying [Andre] Onana, we’re buying [Rasmus] Hojlund, we’re buying [Jadon] Sancho. These are all things from the past, whether we like it or not, we’ve inherited those things and have to sort that out,” Ratcliffe said.
“Some are not good enough and some probably are overpaid, but for us to mould the squad that we are fully responsible for, and accountable for, will take time.”
Former Premier League midfielder O’Hara was shocked at Ratcliffe’s claims on players who he employs.
“I mean, look. I listened to the interview earlier, and we’ve got all of the sound bites from it,” O’Hara told talkSPORT.
“That statement that he’s come out with, it was the one that obviously sticks out when he’s saying that ‘probably some of them aren’t good enough, and probably some of them are overpaid’.
“And then he named players like Onana, Hojlund, he talked about Sancho…but I’m sitting there thinking ‘all right, fair enough on Sancho’ because he’s not at the football club anymore.
“But to talk about players that are playing and starting for Manchester United in the manner that he did, I couldn’t believe that an owner would come out with that kind of statement.”
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It is somewhat shocking for the owner of a football club to single out individual players at that very same club. The media scrutiny on United is clearly high at the minute, given they’re 14th in the Premier League and clearly not playing very well.
Ratcliffe is only adding fuel to that fire by admitting he believes there are players who are earning too much. It’s clear he’d like for that not to be the case, but publicly saying to does not seem the right way to tackle it.
