Four-time Olympic sailing gold medalist Sir Ben Ainslie has a line in a book published last year charting the rise of Ineos that will resonate with the Manchester United team who met with Sir Jim Ratcliffe this week.
Ainslie is the head of the British sailing team Ineos Britannia, which will compete in the 37th America’s Cup to be held in Barcelona in October.
Ainslie said in Grit, Rigor & Humor: The Ineos Story: “As team boss I have to justify my decisions and the guys at Ineos, especially Jim, have an incredible ability to smell the bull…”
“As soon as they sense that you’re going a little overboard on some technical details, they get straight to the point. “I think that’s why they’ve been so incredibly successful in business.”
Even towards the end of September, when United were in a growing crisis on and off the pitch, frustrated staff at Old Trafford were still being played with large chunks of what Ratcliffe might describe as a “bull—-“.
Former chief executive Richard Arnold, for example, told an all-staff meeting that United were “getting closer and making progress” to Treble winners Manchester City and “putting their heels on” other rivals.
This left Erik ten Hag’s side looking in disarray, suffering a 3-1 home defeat to Brighton that cost them £17m, their third defeat in four Premier League games, Jadon Sancho being exiled and allegations of assault against Antony Reactions to the Club’s handling of the Mason Greenwood saga, despite being directed at
By contrast, the tone of the meeting between United staff and Ratcliffe at Old Trafford on Thursday could not have been more different, with the Ineos chairman drawing applause for his frank assessment of the team’s on-field performance in the decade since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. .
Ratcliffe, who was given full control of football operations at Old Trafford and was subject to a £1.03bn deal to gain regulatory approval for a 29 per cent stake in the club, made it clear to those present that United had failed for too long and that his priority was to keep the club running rather than making money. He said it was to return him to his winning ways.
A source with knowledge of Ratcliffe’s address told Telegraph Sport that he was “as honest as anyone since Ralf Rangnick said the club needed open-heart surgery” but said there was hope the British billionaire and his Ineos team had the means, authority and time to do so. he also added. and his ability to make that happen, as opposed to being a temporary replacement for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
By taking to the pitch at United this week and talking and listening to staff, players and Ten Hag, Ratcliffe became, in a matter of days, more open, transparent and visible than the Glazers have been in 18-and-a-half years.
The Glazers had not addressed their employees this way since they bought the club in 2005; This underscores how isolated, distant and disconnected from reality Americans are.
Ratcliffe and the Glazers agreed not to criticize each other publicly under the terms of the deal, but the Oldham-born businessman would never need words to do so. His solitary presence and the photographs distributed by the club of him greeting staff and players embarrass the Glazers in a way that perhaps can never be said.
At the same time, United fans will hope that Ratcliffe’s charm offensive is just the beginning of meaningful change at the club, rather than mere window dressing.
“Fur coat and no knickers,” one employee described to a post-Ferguson United reporter this week, and it will be Ineos’ job to make sure any changes they introduce have real substance as more empty rhetoric won’t do.
“There is a lot of frustration,” the source added. “People in the club want to be inspired again. They really want someone they can get behind and believe in.”
Sir Dave Brailsford joins Ratcliffe in Manchester this week. The British cycling industry’s former performance director, who now serves as sporting director of Ineos, has been carrying out an audit of United’s football operations and staff and has spent a lot of time talking to staff.
Recruitment is seen as the department in most urgent need of overhaul and there is a strong expectation that Ratcliffe and Brailsford will bring in a new director of football and perhaps a recruiter with him.
Donny van de Beek’s loan departure to Eintracht Frankfurt this week and the possibility of Sancho returning on loan to Borussia Dortmund in the coming days are reminders of both United’s persistent transfer failures and the club’s enduring ability to intimidate and spit out players . dysfunctional order.
Whatever happens, United fans will be praying that Ainslie is right and that Ratcliffe and Ineos will smell the “bull” and do something about it.