It is just over a year since Sir Jim Ratcliffe completed his purchase of a minority stake in Manchester United.

The 72-year-old petrochemicals billionaire and his INEOS organisation took control of sporting operations at Old Trafford and have wasted little time in making their presence felt.

There have been highs — United won the FA Cup in May — but there have also been huge challenges along the way: a sacked manager, mass redundancies, fan protests and a team enduring its worst Premier League season.

Ratcliffe and CEO Omar Berrada have been speaking in a set of pre-arranged interviews with the BBC, The Times, The Telegraph and The Overlap, and covered a range of topics including the British businessman’s damning assessment of the state of the squad, the decision over the future of Old Trafford, the position of head coach Ruben Amorim, the club’s financial position and plenty more besides. The Athletic was not invited to take part.

Here, Adam Crafton, Laurie Whitwell and Mark Critchley analyse the main talking points from all the interviews in one place, assess what we can learn from Ratcliffe and Berrada’s rare public comments and what else we know of the subjects under discussion.

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Some players ‘not good enough’ – but Ratcliffe sees ‘progress’

On the BBC website, the headline was damning. ‘Some Man Utd players not good enough and overpaid’, it read. It is certainly an eye-catching quote and it will likely hit hard in the Old Trafford home dressing room, where United’s players have underperformed over the past two seasons.

In his interview with the BBC, Ratcliffe explained that Manchester United’s summer window in 2025 will be impacted by the fact the club still owes hundreds of millions of pounds in transfer fees for players signed before INEOS acquired a 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 £300m, 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 Sancho, who now plays for Chelsea and we pay half his wages, we’re paying £17m to buy him in the summer.”

Antony is now on loan at Real Betis while Casemiro has largely been out of the picture under Amorim. Goalkeeper Onana’s form in the second half of the season has been poor, while Hojlund is a striker without a goal in 20 games.

He was then asked if he was implying the players were not at the level required for United and he 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.

“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.”

However, Ratcliffe did appear warmer on some of the players when he spoke to former Manchester United captain Gary Neville on The Overlap. In that interview, Ratcliffe described United’s performance under former coach Erik ten Hag as “erratic”, saying they turned up for the FA Cup final against Manchester City but not against Crystal Palace — United lost 4-0 at Selhurst Park last season and Ten Hag was almost sacked after that game.

Ratcliffe continued by saying he has seen signs of progress in the players recruited under his stewardship. He praised Matthijs De Ligt and Joshua Zirkzee, recruited from Bayern Munich and Bologna last summer, as well as Ayden Heaven, a January signing from Arsenal.

“Under Ruben, it was difficult at the beginning and I sort of get that,” Ratcliffe said. “I think we have seen progress. Some of the players bought in the summer — we have seen them settle. It’s not an easy league to play in, there is a lot of scrutiny. Look at how Zirkzee got knocked about yesterday (versus Arsenal) in the first half, he would not be used to that in the Italian league.

“If you look at the top eight most-expensive players we have in terms of salary, four of them are not available to Ruben. If you did that with Liverpool or Manchester City, that is half the cream of your team gone. I think we have seen progress. We saw a glimpse of the future yesterday. They were quite cohesive, you saw a bit of the game plan and the players played their hearts out for Manchester United. You could see it in De Ligt tackling, and in the tackle that Heaven made, that it meant something.”

He insisted United’s players signed over the past 12 months would “come good”.

Adam Crafton

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A new stadium on the horizon?

“It’s definitely deliverable,” Ratcliffe told Neville when asked about the prospect of United once again playing in a best-in-class stadium.

“If you take the view it’s the greatest club in the world, then it should be a stadium befitting the greatest club in the world and also a stadium that befits the greatest league in the world because the Premier League is the greatest league in the world.”

United have been assessing options for the future of Old Trafford virtually ever since Ratcliffe’s arrival. Earlier this year, a designated task force delivered its report on the feasibility of either redeveloping the existing structure or rebuilding a new stadium.

United are expected to announce their decision on Tuesday. Sources, speaking anonymously in order to protect relationships, have told The Athletic the club has chosen to pursue a new-build, 100,000-seater stadium rather than redevelop the existing Old Trafford.

The cost of building a new stadium has previously been estimated at £2bn but it remains unclear how United intend to fund the project.

Ratcliffe insisted the club will not need government support to pay for it, but said public money will be necessary to make the improvements to infrastructure that a new stadium would require, as part of the wider regeneration of the Trafford Wharfside area.

“The only basis upon which we can build a new one is if it is part of this government regeneration scheme for south Manchester, because we can’t afford to regenerate southern Manchester, that’s too big a bill for the club,” he said.

“We can build a stadium. We don’t need any government funding for that stadium, but it has to be the underpin for the regeneration.”

Ratcliffe also hinted that designs for the future Old Trafford have already been made, with Neville acknowledging he has also seen them. Neville was a member of the task force working on the future of the stadium and he has previously undertaken promotional work on behalf of United.

“I won’t say much more but Norman Foster (of architects Foster + Partners), who also is a Mancunian and is the world’s greatest architect in my view, really has created the most iconic — well, you’ve seen it — the most iconic stadium, incredible,” Ratcliffe said.

“It would be marvellous if Manchester United could go down that road and in five years’ time or six years’ time have that stadium.”

Mark Critchley

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Fact-checking Ratcliffe’s cost-cutting comments

“The simple answer is the club runs out of money at Christmas if we don’t do those things,” Ratcliffe told the BBC, referencing the cost-cutting measures that have been put in place over the past year (more on that below). He repeated the line to The Telegraph and Times: “It (United) goes bust at Christmas (without change)”.

Those statements stretch credulity in the extreme. Quite simply, United would still be operating as a company in nine months’ time had the staff restructuring and money-saving not taken place. Going bust means the club would have been forced to close, but United is an SEC listed company that Ratcliffe bought into at a $6.4billion (£5bn) valuation, and there are numerous mechanisms to avoid such a fate.

United do have a cash problem, as outlined by The Athletic in January, with last season’s total of £74million only possible due to the £159m investment by Ratcliffe as per the terms of his deal with the Glazers. Otherwise, the flow of cash out of the club compared to money generated would have seen United hit by an £86m fall.

But it was not staffing levels or free lunches that have been putting United in the red for the past five years; it was player trading and interest payments on the debt. Last season United spent £191m on new signings and £36m servicing the bank loans, partly those forced on the club by the Glazers’ leveraged buyout.

To put this into context, European football’s governing body UEFA recently released its report on European club finance and investment landscape, which listed United top for operating profit at €144m (£121m, $156m), above Arsenal (€141m), Real Madrid (€133m) and Tottenham Hotspur (€87m). That is the money made from the day-to-day functioning of the club through ticket sales, merchandise, sponsorships, broadcast revenues, minus running costs such as wages, travel and bills. United signed a deal with Qualcomm worth $225m over three years.

Undoubtedly, there were areas of spending excess within the organisation, but Ratcliffe’s decisions on the running of the club come more from the INEOS ideology than an absolute financial imperative.

According to the most recent accounts, United expect to save £40m to £45m on the first round of 250 redundancies, so a similar number seems plausible for the next round. But Ratcliffe put the changes as much higher, adding: “We reduced the cost of running the club by about £125m, so that transforms the club.”

Ratcliffe’s regime has incurred extra costs however, notably £4.1m for the episode which led to the departure of sporting director Dan Ashworth, £10.6m for Ten Hag’s departure, and £11m for hiring Amorim. Finishing in the bottom half of the Premier League costs in the region of £30m in prize money. United, under Ratcliffe, also made a £200m drawdown on the revolving credit facility to pay for last summer’s transfers. It was also Ratcliffe’s call to spend £50m on revamping the training ground.

For all the implied criticism of the Glazers’ stewardship of the club, Ratcliffe stepped back from attacking them over the interest payments on the club’s debt. “Interest is one of the costs but it isn’t the biggest cost in this club,” he said. Interest payments recently hit £1bn cumulatively.

He said the exact picture of United’s balance sheet had not been “crystal clear” in the due diligence stage amid a “forest of numbers”. But there were several months to analyse the accounts during the sale process and United is a public company.

Laurie Whitwell

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A ‘grumpy’ Ferguson conversation and Ratcliffe’s new bugbear

One of the predominant narratives of the past year has been Ratcliffe’s determination to cut costs at Old Trafford, following five consecutive years of losses. This has led to the elimination of company credit cards, taking away free travel for United staff to the FA Cup final at Wembley and cutting down on complimentary lunches for those working at Old Trafford and the Carrington training ground, as well as clamping down on bonus payments. In addition, two waves of redundancies have been announced, the first cutting 250 jobs last summer before a second round of up to 200 lay-offs was announced last month, in a move described by the club’s website as a “transformation plan”.

The Athletic revealed in October that INEOS had continued its cost-cutting programme by ending a multi-million pound annual commitment to Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful manager in the club’s history. We reported that Ratcliffe had broached the matter with Ferguson in a face-to-face meeting.

Ratcliffe confirmed this in his interview with The Times. He said: “I sat down with (Sir) Alex, just the two of us in the room, and I said ‘look, the club isn’t where you may think it is. It is spending more than it’s earning and we’re going to finish up in some difficulties. Honestly, we can’t really afford to continue to pay you £2m a year’.

“I said I’m going to ‘leave it with you, let you have a think about it’. It was very grown up. Maybe a little bit grumpy at the beginning but he got it, and he came back three days later, after talking to his son, and said ‘fine, I’m going to step away from it. My decision’. I think it reflects really well on Alex, because he put the club before himself.”

Ratcliffe appeared less sympathetic to some of the cuts being made to the rank and file at Old Trafford. As for the end to lunches for staff, the Times journalist Matt Lawton wrote that Ratcliffe “scoffed’ when saying “nobody ever gave me a free lunch”.

Ratcliffe added: “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.”

By way of balance, some staff members spoken to by The Athletic, who talked anonymously as they are not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, explained that many at the club have been underpaid relative to their fields, often because it was deemed a privilege to work at United. As such, with salaries lower than they might earn elsewhere, perks such as free lunches or bonuses helped to make up for the shortfall, rather than being evidence of a culture of excess.

Some of INEOS’ other cuts have been controversial, such as a £40,000 annual reduction in contributions to the Manchester United Former Players Association. Ratcliffe was grilled on the matter by Neville, who suggested the club should have organised a charity dinner, including players such as Fernandes and Harry Maguire, and charged guests to come along to raise money for players who played for United in the era where footballers earned far less money. Ratcliffe suggested he would look at the matter again.

Curiously, Ratcliffe brought up a new bugbear of his; he had discovered, he claims, that the club had a “body language consultant” on their books earning £175,000 per year. Ten Hag spoke of the importance of body language during his time in charge but The Athletic has not been able to identify any individual who United hired with this specific job role and the club also did not respond when asked to clarify Ratcliffe’s claim.

The cuts at Old Trafford have appeared to be undermined by some of INEOS’ own decisions, most notably the pursuit and subsequent departure of Ashworth, while the extension of Ten Hag’s contract, his firing and Amorim’s hiring cost the club more than £20m.

Adam Crafton

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Why Ratcliffe thinks Amorim will be in charge ‘for a long time’

A striking comment from Ratcliffe comes in the Times interview. “I really, really like Ruben. He’s a very thoughtful guy. Every time I go to the training ground, I speak to Ruben. I sit down and have a cup of coffee with him and tell him where it’s going wrong, and he tells me to f*** off. I like him.”

This expression of self-effacement should spread calm when the subject of Amorm’s future is debated. For a man who dispensed with Ashworth five months after hiring him following a five-month wait, Ratcliffe cuts as someone who will not hesitate to make a change if he thinks something is not working, no matter the optics. Then it feels like Amorim’s straight-talking and brutal language at times might act as gunpowder.

But Ratcliffe insisting he enjoys an occasional confrontational chat, as well as seeing Amorim as having the robustness to succeed, will ease fears Amorim might, as he keeps saying, face the consequences should poor results continue.

“If I actually look at the squad which is available to Ruben, I think he is doing a really good job to be honest,” Ratcliffe told the BBC. “I think Ruben is an outstanding young manager. I think he will be there for a long time.”

Such an endorsement is far beyond anything Ratcliffe ever gave Ten Hag.

The reasons for that were clear in his interview with The Overlap. “Omar and Jason and me,” he said when asked who appointed Amorim.

Ratcliffe’s agency in this United manager appears crucial, and it is notable he used Berrada’s name first, with Jason Wilcox, the technical director, second. Ashworth’s omission is telling.

Laurie Whitwell

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Mistakes and lessons learned after a year in charge

Neville’s first question to Ratcliffe asked him to sum up his year at the reins. “In a funny sort of way, it’s gone as we anticipated,” he said. Well, nobody thought it would be easy.

Ratcliffe compared how his mother used to clip him behind the ear when he brought his school report card home with the metaphorical clip around the ear he gets every time he reads the back pages these days.

He accepted he and the rest of United’s hierarchy have made mistakes over the past 12 months, not least the decision to stand by Ten Hag as manager.

As The Athletic reported last summer, there was initially consensus to change manager, only for United to struggle in their search for a suitable successor and ultimately come back to Ten Hag.

“It was a wrong decision, it was an error, so yes I suppose in that sense I regret it,” Ratcliffe said. “I think there were some mitigating circumstances in having made that decision, but at the end of the day it was a wrong decision so hands up, mea culpa on that one.”

The mitigating circumstances were that it was still early days for United’s newly-formed football structure to make such a big decision, with himself, Sir Dave Brailsford and Wilcox all new to the club.

Berrada, who only officially started work after the decision to stand by Ten Hag was taken, was also name-checked by Ratcliffe as another new arrival.

Ratcliffe claimed that, as United’s key decision-makers were only just in place, it was difficult to know whether Ten Hag was failing or the club was failing Ten Hag.

“In other words: was the erratic performance a function of Erik or was it a function of the organisation? We couldn’t really get to the bottom of answering that question with sort of certainty, so gave the benefit of the doubt.”

Ratcliffe also addressed the exit of Ashworth, which came just five months after he officially joined, and after United had spent just as long prising him away from Newcastle United.

Ashworth and United parted ways in December — a story broken by The Athletic — with Ratcliffe pivotal to the decision. Among other gripes, United’s minority owner felt Ashworth had insufficient input on the decision to appoint Amorim as Ten Hag’s successor.

When asked to explain the reasoning behind Ashworth’s exit, Ratcliffe said: “At the end of the day it was chemistry, maybe a bit more than chemistry… but let’s just say it didn’t work.”

Ratcliffe was slightly more defensive on this score than on Ten Hag, insisting United had done the right thing in cutting ties.

“I know it’s an unpopular decision and it’s seen as an error but again, slightly in our defence, we did recognise it as being something that would not work and therefore we decided we would make a change.

“What would have been far easier because of the scrutiny that we knew that we would get in the media would have been to live with it, but I wasn’t prepared to live with it.

“That has to be part of our mentality, even though we’re having to make unpopular decisions, if we think it’s the right thing then we’re going to do it.”

Mark Critchley

(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)