Ineos’ arrival at Manchester United following Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s partial takeover of the club has not been the fabled ‘red pill’ that died in the wool Old Trafford regulars had hoped for.
The 2024/25 campaign was thoroughly atrocious and although manager Ruben Amorim saw his first team squad reach the Europa League Final, they finished in a laughable 15th place in the Premier League table – their lowest league placing since they spent a single season in the old Second Division way back in 1974/75. Oh, and they lost their European Final to 17th placed Tottenham Hotspur.
Things have not been much better off the pitch either as the roofs continue to leak. There have been major job cuts at the club, with their new minority owner claiming the club was on course to go out of business. That claim did not seem to apply to Dan Ashworth’s five month spell at the club that reportedly cost them £4.1 million, and we will not get into managerial compensation costs, nor the player trading that they are trying to force through to get rid of high earners who could still do a job for them.
No, it all led to more employee cuts, and a failure to properly celebrate what they did win this year as all club levels saw the end of season bash cancelled, a BBQ set up had they won in Europe and presumably Sir Jim turning the heating down five degrees and running after everybody in order to turn the lights off as quickly as he could.
But, they seem to have no issues in agreeing to pay over £100 million for Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Matheus Cunha who has agreed a switch and will officially join after the completion of Brazilian commitments, and Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo with talks on a deal reportedly set to begin this week.
Whether or not these deals were predicated on the belief that Bruno Fernandes would snap the hands off Saudi Arabia Pro League side Al-Hilal, who were hugely interested in signing him this summer, remains to be seen but it is being claimed that it will not complicate finances further, but with the 30 year old Portuguese international giving them a flat no, with sales already expected for the likes of Andre Onana, Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho, the fervour to get bodies more quickly out the door will remain front and centre in their minds.
Giving Doris the Tea Lady another P45 and insisting office kettles can only be boiled twice a day is not really going to help them much here.