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Hello! If you’re celebrating Christmas, have a fabulous one. If you’re not, our very best wishes to you all the same. Peace, and see you on Boxing Day. Coming up:
🕰️ A year of INEOS at Old Trafford
💵 The Braves, Villa and a close sale
🤔 Festive quiz action
💒 Marriage or transfer talk?
A Year Of INEOS: How do you measure progress as cuts kick in?
Today marks a year of INEOS at Manchester United and the club’s minority shareholder might pop a cork were it not so fixated on counting pennies. The traditional Christmas party at Old Trafford would surely have been bring your own bottle — had it gone ahead.
At this juncture, how do we measure progress? Twelve months ago, United were a mile off the pace in the Premier League and smarting from a 2-0 defeat to West Ham United. This Christmas Eve, they’re a mile off the pace in the Premier League and smarting from a 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth. An FA Cup materialised in the interim but INEOS is not demonstrably closer to reviving the glory days.
You’ll find footballing matters aplenty in this piece by Laurie Whitwell and Adam Crafton on the group’s impact but there’s no getting away from INEOS’ extreme focus on cutting costs — from cancelling the rank-and-file’s Christmas do to a haul of 250 redundancies, it reads like it has been priority No 1 for INEOS and its main man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Clarity on the football front has been less apparent.
And football, without fail, is what owners and stakeholders at clubs as big as United are judged on. The point of INEOS at Old Trafford was to spark a competitive resurgence. It’s been an ordeal — and its time at the coalface hasn’t answered the question of whether United will like where Ratcliffe is taking them.
Costly departures
INEOS and Ratcliffe have a stake of just under 29 per cent in United. The club continue to be majority owned by the American Glazer family — but in a back-seat fashion.
In effect, INEOS’ investment last Christmas earned it carte blanche to run United in a sporting sense. With the Glazers’ blessing, it has. It was INEOS’ decision to stick with former head coach Erik ten Hag at the end of last season, a decision it soon regretted. It was INEOS’ decision to drive through the appointment of Dan Ashworth as sporting director, only to part company with him after five months. Those errors have wasted well over £10m ($12.5m).
(Photo by Matt McNulty/Getty Images)
Transfers have been expensive, too. The outlay in the summer window ran close to £200m, building a squad in Ten Hag’s image, only for him to depart in October. Ruben Amorim, his replacement (above), has been left to make sense of the squad he inherited and, unsurprisingly, is experiencing mixed results.
All in all, it’s not been a joyful year. Ticket prices are up and concessionary categories gone. Fans, as they would be, are angry about that. The ambassadorial role held by the club’s legendary manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, was taken from him. Laurie and Adam’s piece makes it clear there are no sacred cows at Old Trafford — and very few areas where Ratcliffe will not look for savings.
Musk or Bezos funding?
INEOS’ reputation will stand or fall on what it actually delivers. The team are yet to improve significantly, though Ratcliffe says progress will come. He wants to upgrade or replace the club’s stadium but is still to produce a credible plan for funding that project. I was intrigued to read that he has spoken privately about X owner Elon Musk or Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos stepping up to help finance it. Government investment is also being mooted. Let’s see.
To be fair to Ratcliffe, the INEOS era is in its infancy. His projection is that short-term pain will bring long-term gain. That’s fine if it works out. But another year like this one and INEOS should expect to see patience in its corner of Manchester wearing thin.
✍️ Charlotte Harpur has also written about the impact INEOS has made on Manchester United Women, where there is an ambition to win the title but no plan and “limited” impact. We will cover this more in our Full Time newsletter.
News round-up
Braves’ New World? U.S. baseball franchise and their failed bid to buy Aston Villa
(Getty Images, 4Imagens, STR/AFP, Shaun Botterill, Don Cravens, Brandon Sloter; design Will Tullos)
Any feature that starts with the words ‘Pele and I were in a limo…’ is going to have me reading to the end, and Jacob Tanswell dangled that hook beautifully this morning.
His feature is actually nothing to do with Pele (or not fundamentally) but it schooled me in something I was totally unaware of: the Atlanta Braves baseball franchise coming close to buying Aston Villa around the start of the 1970s.
Negotiations didn’t cross the line and the thought of American owners in England’s old First Division (what became the Premier League in 1992) was met with incredulity — which is funny now because, as the latest news about Sheffield United demonstrates, U.S. investors are English football’s dominant species. Back then, local custodians were king. Those days have gone and, realistically, for good.
Managing stress: ‘I don’t digest food properly’: all-consuming pressure of being a boss
Football management is an unhealthy addiction. The more I cover the sport, the less appeal I see in it. Stress levels are horrific. Almost every job ends badly. Nobody at a club exists in a more ruthless line of fire.
Rory Smith’s overview of the pound of flesh coaching takes — analysis shaped around Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola — crystalised my thinking. Guardiola is the best in the business. Despite his elite skill, he has a hard time eating, sleeping and switching off. He can divert his mind for about half an hour tops before it strays back to business.
This month, Tottenham’s Ange Postecoglou claimed managing a football club was tougher than politics. His comments invited us to drag out the world’s smallest violin but he rightly pointed out that politicians deal with occasional elections. Coaches face them every weekend. So while you’re enjoying Christmas, give a thought to the boss of your team — who probably isn’t enjoying theirs.
Quiz Questions
Our Big Christmas Quiz will be hitting the shelves of The Athletic’s website tomorrow morning. Don’t tell the chiefs but we’re giving you a sneak peek by pinching a handful of the questions. We’ll be back with the answers in Boxing Day’s edition:
- From the image above, name the goalscorer. Is it a) Harry Kane, b) Jude Bellingham, c) Ollie Watkins or d) Ivan Toney?
- This is a quote from USWNT manager Emma Hayes: “Very French. Quirky, to say the least. But I like quirk.” Was she referring to a) Kylian Mbappe’s transfer drama, b) new Chelsea Women’s boss Sonia Bompastor, c) the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony or d) Tarte Tatin?
- Which player set a Premier League record by being substituted 29 times in a season: a) Andreas Pereira, b) Justin Kluivert, c) Zeki Amdouni or d) Pape Sarr?
- What was unusual about Botafogo’s recent Copa Libertadores final win (you’ll know this if you’ve been reading TAFC closely): a) they had a player sent off for a first-minute foul, b) they conceded two own goals, c) they finished the game with an outfield player in goal or d) they used all five subs before half-time?
And Finally…
Steve White/EMPICS via Getty Images
My editor, Kev, suggested I come up with memorable Christmas moments from my years as a football writer, so here are two.
First, as a very wet-behind-the-ears journalist in 2001, being given the hospital pass of having to phone Swansea City manager Colin Addison (above) on Christmas Day to ask him what he made of the club failing to pay his squad. He was just sitting down for dinner. He wasn’t pleased.
And second, in an example of a constant peril of the job, the night in 2008 when I got a call about a transfer Leeds United were trying to finalise — just as I was about to propose to my then-girlfriend. The signing didn’t happen. We did get married. All’s well that ends well.
On that note, may festive vibes reach you all. Drink, be merry and watch lots of football.
(Top photo: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)
