The future of the manager
Erik ten Hag’s team is treading water at just the wrong time: Sir Jim Ratcliffe takes charge of Manchester United’s sporting department and makes sweeping changes to the role that will directly affect the manager. Richard Arnold has left, although he will officially stay until the end of the year, and his position could be replaced by Ratcliffe’s CEO of Ineos Sport, Jean-Claude Blanc, as Ten Hag reports. Ten Hag’s line manager could also change as Ratcliffe assesses the need for a new director of football, which is held by John Murtough. Ten Hag may get the first hint of Ratcliffe’s status in his new empire if he voices his view on United’s transfer policy, a key factor in his ability to coach and manage the side to success. This brings us to Murtough…
Will Murtough survive?
The director of football has no plans to leave, but whether he stays on may be a matter for Ratcliffe. Some inside the club think Murtough will either step aside or follow Arnold out the exit door. Ratcliffe may have indicated his assessment of Casemiro, 30, when he questioned signing Casemiro, 30, on a four-year deal worth around £350,000-a-week during a tour of the club in March. Murtough, who had the transfer veto power of the football department, and Ten Hag, who had the same authority, were responsible for the transfer of the Brazilian football player. Murtough, who was present when Ratcliffe brought up the issue, is said to have been less than impressed. Notably, Ratcliffe-owned French club Nice recruited Aaron Ramsey, Kasper Schmeichel and Ross Barkley as part of the nine transfers in the summer that Casemiro joined United. Schmeichel was 35 and signed a three-year contract in a £1 million move from Leicester; Ramsey, then 31, and Barkley, then 28, became free agents and received one-year deals. All three players left Nice this summer. Dan Ashworth, Newcastle’s sporting director, and Paul Mitchell, who was Monaco’s sporting director until March, are among the names mentioned in the posts as potential replacements for Murtough.
Relating to: Sir Jim Ratcliffe completes deal to buy minority stake in Manchester United
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Blanc, who has an MBA from Harvard, is declared the “Lionel Messi of the business world” by Nice’s general manager Fabrice Bocquet. Blanc, 60, has served as CEO and president of Juventus, CEO of Paris Saint-Germain and French Tennis, and the executive overseeing the Tour de France. But whoever succeeds him or Arnold, it will quickly become clear that United are a one-off hydra-headed monster of a club that is treacherously difficult to control. Then there’s this: Manchester City have won six titles since United’s last title in 2013 and boast a commercial operation that beats Ratcliffe’s new concern by light years.
Old Trafford (and training ground)
To find a suitable acronym for the rocking United ship, end the search on the stadium roof, where rain leaks in on (most) rainy days in Manchester. Old Trafford remains a historic site, but as it continues to fall into disrepair, its story of disrepair has become a central narrative in its recent history. The story of the neglect of a ground dating back to 1910, as Premier League titles dwindle (zero in a decade), is emblematic of the Glazers’ semi-permanent ownership. Ratcliffe will invest $300m (£237m) in infrastructure but this is a small figure considering the billions of pounds of refurbishment or new venue required. There is also the cramped Carrington base: as with Sir Matt Busby Way, the training ground has a large footprint but the configuration and facilities are very outdated.
Communication
The Glazers treat the microphone or the TV camera the way United fans treat Liverpool or Manchester City: as an implacable enemy. No family members held press conferences or interviews during their 18-year tenure. Ratcliffe came with a suspension partly due to the local lad’s recovery (his hometown of Failsworth is next to United’s hometown of Newton Heath) and if he proves to be as quiet as the Americans then it will be: a) bad public relations; and b) just poor. Football fans can be classified as the most loyal citizens of any society, but the frosty relationship created by the Glazers’ stance on communication has strained the faith of even United fans. One contribution for Ratcliffe, then, is to address this by opening and maintaining a regular line for fans.
Establishing a working relationship with the Glazers
Ratcliffe gains significant control by paying a high price of £1.3bn for his 25 per cent stake, but the Glazers remain majority owners. The 71-year-old manages football policy but these do not exist in a vacuum, with the business side influencing this and vice versa. Ratcliffe admits Manchester United have an impressive revenue-based model that makes the club like a cash machine, but he is not a fan of how the money is invested, particularly in the squad. So what happens then, for example, if Ten Hag wants a new midfielder and Ratcliffe agrees but the Glazers try to block the signing, citing a drop in income?