Sir Jim Ratcliffe talked about Man Utd’s players, coach, finances and future. One year on, how does it look?

A year ago, Sir Jim Ratcliffe gave a series of interviews in which he spoke at length about the state of Manchester United’s squad, the decision over the future of Old Trafford, the position of then head coach Ruben Amorim, the club’s financial position, and plenty more.

In those pre-arranged interviews with the BBC, The Times, The Telegraph and The Overlap, the United co-owner said some of the club’s players were “probably overpaid”, a new stadium was “eminently financeable”, that Amorim would be in charge for “a long time” and that the club could have gone “bust” by Christmas. The Athletic, which was not invited to take part, reported and analysed those comments.

Over the 12 months that followed, United have announced plans for a new stadium, sacked Amorim and appointed Michael Carrick as interim coach, spent £239.2m ($324.2m) on summer transfers, and sold or loaned out players including Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford.

Here, Adam Crafton, Mark Critchley and Chris Weatherspoon look back at what Ratcliffe said last March, what happened next, and explore how Ratcliffe’s vision for the club is playing out.

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What happened to the ‘probably overpaid’ players and the ‘transformation’ of the squad?

When Ratcliffe spoke last year, he created a lorry-load of headlines when he declared that some Manchester United players were “not good enough” and some were “probably overpaid”.

For a team that tanked under Ruben Amorim to the club’s lowest league finish since relegation in 1974, it was hard to argue with his assessment, although INEOS’s decision first to retain Erik ten Hag, and then to hire the doomed Amorim, played its own substantial role in the team’s decline.

Yet there has been a shake-up of the squad. Ratcliffe claimed that the club’s ability to manoeuvre in the 2025 summer transfer window would be hampered by the fact that United would need to pay out major sums of money owed for players signed before INEOS acquired its minority stake in the club in 2024. He name-checked Antony, Casemiro, Andre Onana, Rasmus Hojlund and Jadon Sancho, whose combined transfer fees far exceed £300million ($386m), as players who United still owe money on.

He said: “These are all things from the past, whether we like it or not, we’ve inherited those things and have to sort that out.

“For us to mould the squad that we are fully responsible for, and accountable for, will take time.”

“We’ve got this period of transformation where we move from the past to the future.

“There are some great players in the squad, as we know, the captain is a fabulous footballer. We definitely need Bruno (Fernandes), he’s a fantastic footballer.”

In this category, Ratcliffe’s appraisal has largely aged well. United cleared out several players last summer, either on transfers or on loan, including Antony, Onana and Hojlund, while also moving on Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho. Casemiro, despite an unexpected revival in form, will also be moving on at the end of this season, freeing up a vast chunk of salary.

As it transpired, United spent more than many people expected last summer, and it was the club’s best transfer window in many years. Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko have all had periods of highly encouraging form, while Senne Lammens has reintroduced calm and quality in goal.

Sir Jim’s comments about Fernandes (OK, we all know Fernandes is brilliant) have also stood the test of time, with the Portuguese midfielder once again one of the Premier League’s standout operators this season.

One of the more questionable comments Ratcliffe made was his claim that the players United had signed under the previous 12 months (encompassing the INEOS tenure) would “come good”.

In this case, it is a mixed bag. Neither Manuel Ugarte nor Joshua Zirkzee have excelled this season, and they cost a combined £86m. Noussair Mazraoui has also had a quieter second season, struggling to earn starts in a team that exited both domestic cup competitions at the first attempt. Matthijs de Ligt is a very good player, but United have not had him on the pitch since November, while Leny Yoro has had a tricky season, but many fans retain hope that the 20-year-old will develop into an excellent centre-half.

If there is, perhaps, a further criticism, it may be that United’s faith in Amorim was such that the composition of the squad is now shaped excessively in his image, short of wingers in particular, so this will need to be addressed in the market in the coming year or two.

Adam Crafton

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What’s happening with the new stadium?

A day after his round of interviews, following a year of consultations with local leaders and stakeholders, Ratcliffe unveiled United’s plans for a new, 100,000-capacity stadium adjacent to the site of the existing Old Trafford, which would be the centrepiece of a wider, government-led regeneration of the surrounding area.

Ratcliffe told The Overlap that the project was “definitely deliverable” although he was careful to insist that any new stadium was only possible as part of the government’s regeneration plans.

Questions about how United would meet the estimated £2billion cost of a new build were batted away. The project was “eminently financeable”, Ratcliffe told BBC Sport, while insisting that no public money would be used for the construction of the stadium itself.

As for timescales, Ratcliffe believed United could design and build the stadium within five years, although again on the proviso that the government goes down “the high-speed track”.

The first anniversary of the unveiling passed last week without an update on the stadium’s progress from the club. The question of financing remains, and if anything, is all the more pressing as United’s level of debt has only risen over the past 12 months, totalling £777m in the most recent set of accounts.

Collette Roche has been appointed as United’s chief executive for new stadium development, and the political vehicle that will drive the wider regeneration project, the Old Trafford Regeneration Mayoral Development Corporation, met for the first time earlier this month, but obstacles remain, not least land assembly.

Negotiations over the purchase of land to the west of Old Trafford, which is currently the site of one of the UK’s most important rail freight terminals, hit an impasse last year. United valued the land within the region of £50m, well below the £400m price demanded by rail freight company Freightliner.

In September, The Athletic revealed that the uncertainty over land had led to United drawing up plans to scrap the stadium’s ambitious canopy design, which drew criticism in some quarters upon its unveiling, as well as comparisons to a circus tent.

Those designs, the work of architecture firm Foster + Partners, were only ever described as “conceptual” plans anyway. But a year on from their unveiling, plenty of work still needs to be done for them to become a reality, and sceptics still wonder whether Ratcliffe’s five-year plan is realistic.

Mark Critchley

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What about the club’s finances after warning it could have gone ‘bust’?

Ratcliffe had plenty to say about United’s finances.

After his verdict on some in the squad, the club’s wage bill has tumbled. In 2023-24, salaries cost United £365m. A year later, the sum was £313m and, this season, they’re trending toward less than £300m (albeit Champions League qualification bonuses would change that). Not since 2018 has the wage bill been so low.

How much is attributable to a scything of player wages is hard to say. That 2023-24 figure was a Champions League season; a majority of United players have a 25 per cent wage cut if the club misses out on the competition.

Moreover, hundreds of non-playing staff have been lopped off the payroll. United’s average full-time employee numbers fell by 208 (18 per cent) during Ratcliffe’s first full season in charge and have dropped further since. Interestingly, United are paying more to senior management in their new era even as jobs go elsewhere. For 2024-25, an unspecified amount of key management staff paid £7.8m, double a year earlier, though still notably below the £10m-plus bills of the pre-Covid days when former executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward was at the club.

United’s wage bill was only the fifth-highest in England last season, and won’t be moving up this year. Finishing in the top four would represent an over-achievement in that sense, though a return to Champions League football would see costs jump up again.

Ratcliffe also bristled at outstanding transfer fees on the club’s books, yet transfer debt has continued to be utilised. United’s net transfer debt was £287m in December 2023. Two years on, the figure had risen to £314m, £192m of it due to be paid this year.

Ratcliffe’s point was about United still having to pay for players they had “bought” long ago. United under him still pay fees in instalments, though there has been a notable shift in the mix of their transfer debt. Where, two years ago, 58 per cent was due to be paid in a year or more’s time, as of the end of 2025, only 39 per cent of United’s net transfer debt was due after 2026.

Beyond direct football matters, Ratcliffe claimed last March that since his arrival, United had “reduced the cost of running the club by about £125m, so that transforms the club”. It looked optimistic at the time and remains so today.

Even if we ignore the price of the redundancy programs, the significant expenditure in getting rid of two managers in Ten Hag and Amorim (and Dan Ashworth), and transfer fee amortisation costs, which have continued to rise under Ratcliffe, United’s underlying savings are nowhere close to £125m.

Across the wage bill and other operating expenses, United spent £495m in 2022-23 and £514m in 2023-24, the season Ratcliffe arrived. Last season, those combined costs dropped to £484m and, based on United’s results to the end of December and using some optimistic modelling, may fall to around £450m this term. Those are notable reductions, but a long way short of £125m in annual savings.

On replacing Old Trafford, Ratcliffe was bullish, claiming, “We can build a new stadium. We don’t need any government funding for that stadium, but it has to be the underpin for the regeneration (of south Manchester).”

As The Athletic detailed last week, there are funding approaches available to United for a new home, even as their debt pile and transfer payables loom ever larger. Yet stadium progress has been glacial, and no specifics around funding have been forthcoming.

On that existing debt, Ratcliffe referenced the continued cost of servicing United’s £700m-plus borrowings. “Interest is one of the costs,” he said, “but it isn’t the biggest cost in this club.”

At a net £34m last year, the statement is plainly true, yet it’s hardly irrelevant, particularly amid the cost-cutting backdrop and the fact that, for the most part, the debt it services has provided no benefit to United as a football club. There is $650m of United’s borrowings that are long-term and linked to the Glazer takeover of 21 years ago; as detailed by The Athletic in that piece last week, the largest tranche is due for renewal in the next year and will add higher finance costs onto the club.

No mention of debt reduction was made by Ratcliffe, for good reason. United’s debt has gone up since he arrived, as the club leans ever more heavily on its short-term revolving credit facility to meet significant transfer payments.

Interest on the debt remains a barrier to one of Ratcliffe’s other stated aims: that, by 2028, United “will be the most profitable club in the world”. With two years left to run, the trajectory is positive, but there’s plenty left to do until it is reached.

In one sense, it isn’t so lofty an ambition. Most football clubs are decidedly unprofitable, particularly in England. If Ratcliffe was referring to pre-player trading operating profitability, United are already one of the best cash-generators in world football.

United boasted of an “operating profit” in their half-year finances to the end of December 2025, though that included player sale profits, not generally accepted as an “operating” activity.

Financial results have improved, though a clear restraint on progress has been errors of Ratcliffe’s and the current senior management’s own making. Sacking highly paid football figures continues to drain the bottom line, even as United shed other redundancy costs.

Removing Amorim in January provided another £20m-plus hit and, with continued big transfer spending meaning an amortisation bill heading north of £200m annually, making an overall profit this season won’t happen without a big player sale before the end of June.

Ratcliffe’s most notable claim a year ago was that United would have “run out of money at Christmas (2025)” without the measures put in place since his arrival. It was a contentious, sensationalist statement — not least because United are publicly listed and had given shareholders no foresight of impending financial ruin — but beneath the bombast, there was a semblance of a point. United could not continue the way they were, at least not without external help.

That came first with the injection of £238.5m from Ratcliffe, which has, works at the Carrington training ground aside, pretty much gone on transfers and running costs. Since then, United have borrowed with increasing frequency. That, alongside cuts elsewhere, has enabled a more than £500m gross transfer spend in under two years. United were never close to bust, but a fascinating hypothetical is what would have happened if nobody came along and pumped in the money Ratcliffe did.

In truth, the most obvious shift in United’s finances under Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been a re-tethering to footballing performance. Much is reliant on a return to regular Champions League football. Achieve that and, better still, go consistently deep in that competition, and the financial picture really will look rosier.

Chris Weatherspoon

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What about job cuts?

One of the key narratives of Ratcliffe’s first year became his determination to cut costs at Old Trafford, following five consecutive years of financial losses. This has led to the elimination of company credit cards, cutting down on complimentary lunches for those working at Old Trafford and the Carrington training ground, clamping down on bonus payments, and around 450 lay-offs in a move described by the club’s website as a “transformation plan”.

Ratcliffe said: “At INEOS, we run a lean organisation. As my mother said, you look after the pennies, the pounds look after themselves. We can sound flippant about free lunches, but if you give all these perks, first-class train fares, free taxis, it’s not coherent. It goes bust at Christmas.”

Since then, Ratcliffe’s public attacks on the rank-and-file at United have calmed down, and returning to the Champions League this summer will majorly improve the balance sheet at Old Trafford and help prevent further pain. As for the cuts, they were brutal and painful for those working at the club; not only were these cuts made, but there has also been an almost entire turnover of the club’s executive team in the front office.

There are areas where plenty of non-INEOS sources at United believed lay-offs were necessary, where job roles were ill-defined and the organisation had become bloated over time, yet there are also some who argue the job cuts came too fast and too hard. This has had an impact, for example, in the sponsorship team, where the reduction in numbers has contributed to the club’s struggles over the past year to tie down a training kit sponsor — United have not had one since a deal with Tezos expired last summer — while their current sleeve sponsorship with DXC Technology is set to expire at the end of the season.

This matter was on the agenda at an executive committee meeting (ExCo) at the club’s Carrington training complex earlier this year, attended by majority owners Joel and Avram Glazer. United sources, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that both men have voiced their concerns internally about commercial performance. The club insists that while the senior executive team is aware of the challenges facing them, it is aligned on strategy.

Adam Crafton

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Didn’t Ratcliffe say Amorim would be in charge for ‘a long time’?

While speaking to The Times, Ratcliffe revealed that he quite enjoyed Ruben Amorim’s company, especially when they would sit down to have a cup of coffee together, he would tell Amorim where things were going wrong, and Amorim would respond by telling him “to f*** off”.

Amorim is no longer United’s head coach, however, and there is a certain irony to Ratcliffe’s remarks last March, given the way things ended at the turn of the year.

A breakdown in relations behind the scenes between Amorim and the United hierarchy, culminating in a heated meeting between the former head coach and director of football Jason Wilcox, brought his time in charge to an explosive end, just 14 months after his appointment.

One bone of contention was Amorim’s 3-4-3 system. As The Athletic reported in January, Ratcliffe made his desire for United to switch to a back four clear internally, even suggesting Mbeumo play as a wing-back. That level of input from above — interference, some might say — heightened the risk of a falling out between Amorim and senior leadership.

When speaking last March, Ratcliffe added that Amorim would be there for “a long time”. Later that year, despite a 15th-place finish and defeat in the Europa League final, he said Amorim’s performance would be judged over three years. And yet less than three months later, Amorim was gone.

Ratcliffe clearly admired Amorim’s charisma and enjoyed the odd robust chat over a coffee, but United’s former head coach clearly held a fierce conviction in his own tactical ideas and was always likely to fall on his own sword rather than take direction from his superiors.

Mark Critchley

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What did he say of mistakes?

Ratcliffe was challenged in the interviews on the two biggest missteps of his time at the helm up until that point: the indecision over sacking or sticking with Ten Hag in the summer of 2024, and the dismissal of Ashworth, only five months after he was appointed as sporting director.

Both were “errors”, he admitted, but he felt the Ten Hag episode had “mitigating circumstances” given that INEOS were only a few months into running day-to-day operations at Old Trafford.

Ratcliffe also argued United’s senior leadership deserved some credit for recognising Ashworth’s appointment as “something that would not work” and deciding quickly that things needed to change, despite the criticism that would inevitably follow.

At a push, both Ten Hag and Ashworth could be characterised as legacy issues, pre-dating INEOS’s time. Ten Hag was not their appointment. Ashworth was hired to address the absence of a modern club structure at Old Trafford, something many supporters and observers had long called for.

Ratcliffe now has a third blot on his copybook in Amorim’s exit, though. United’s co-owner took partial responsibility for the appointment while speaking to The Overlap, also name-checking chief executive Omar Berrada and Wilcox, while omitting Ashworth.

We will have to wait for Ratcliffe’s next media rounds for his version of events surrounding Amorim’s departure, and any lessons that may have been learned as a result, but you expect he will likely take the same tack as before: “If we think it’s the right thing,” he said a year ago, “then we’re going to do it”.

Mark Critchley