Dion Fanning: Manchester United need more than marginal gains

If you had a suspicion that these determinations would reach an inevitable conclusion, then you would have been right.

In May, days after their FA Cup final victory, United offered staff voluntary redundancy and gave them a week to take up the offer. The same month Ratcliffe had sent a Friday email to United staff highlighting a “high degree of untidiness” in the IT department. He also told them to “seek alternative employment” if they were not prepared to return to the office rather than work from home.

Staff who wryly noted that there was not enough space for them all in the offices as they were often used for hospitality events should probably have guessed what would happen next.

At the beginning of July, United announced at a 15-minute all-staff meeting that they would be making 250 employees redundant.

As these reviews and cost-cutting measures took place, Manchester United were busy exploring other projects as well. “The people in the north pay their taxes like the people in the south pay their taxes,” Ratcliffe said in February. Ratcliffe, of course, is tax resident in Monaco and has to make each visit to Old Trafford count as he is only allowed in Britain for 90 days a year.

Ratcliffe wondered what the people of the north were getting for their taxes and one of the things he wondered if the north could get for their tax money was a sparkling new national stadium, perhaps located on or near where Manchester United had a stadium in need of refurbishment.

“There is a big argument for regenerating that whole south side of Manchester,” Ratcliffe told the BBC. “The nucleus of it being a new stadium which could take England games, the FA Cup final, the Champions League final. And it could service the north of England. I’d be very excited about that prospect for the north of England.” 

Sir Jim is a patriot, determined to do what is best for his hometown, which is why he supported Brexit and then decided to move to Monaco. But that shouldn’t be seen as a problem when he is looking to do what is best for the people of Manchester.

“Manchester United have announced the creation of an Old Trafford regeneration taskforce that will explore the building of a new state-of-the-art stadium, including how to finance a project that the club accepts it cannot undertake alone,” the Guardian reported in March.

Sebastian (Lord) Coe would head the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force which was a joint task force also run by Trafford Council. Other members included Gary Neville and the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.

The initial reports suggested that the favoured path was the construction of a new stadium with a 100,000 seat capacity, making it the biggest stadium in the UK.

“Financing is one of the key considerations of the task force,” one report noted “and a wide variety of potential private funding sources will be explored. There could be opportunities for a public-private partnership to power the regeneration of the area.” 

In all of this, Ratcliffe has revealed himself to be a figure familiar in the modern word. He sticks closely to the law which states that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like a nail.

For Ratcliffe, tax exile and Brexiteer, there is something appealing in the financial model rolled out globally in 2008, but seen in many US sports franchises long before that.

The privatisation of profit has always been a key plank of their ideology but the socialisation of loss or, as it would be termed in this instance, “a public-private partnership to power the regeneration of the area” has been a lever many have tried to pull over the past 15 years.

So Ratcliffe determines that there are always savings to be made, as there always will be if your only tool is a hammer and you treat everything like a nail. He hopes too for the regeneration of an area and the financing that may come with it.

This is all standard stuff, but there is one area where Manchester United still require more imagination. That is the area which gets the most attention, the football operations, which is Ratcliffe’s responsibility.

During all the months of cuts, the sequence of emails about tidiness and slack culture, there has been a constant. During the removal of the tradition that all staff members were brought to Wembley for the FA Cup final and given a hotel for the night (this year they had to pay £20 for a day trip on a coach), one man somehow remained, an example of whatever is the opposite of marginal gains.

United’s victory in the Cup final appeared to alter the perspective of the club about the manager Erik ten Hag. He had been expected to be dismissed following that game but a win over Manchester City led the club’s season review to a different and surprising conclusion. Ten Hag was given a new contract — a one-year extension — with the club conscious of the difficulties he had encountered through injuries and off-field factors. They were also said to be impressed by Ten Hag’s tactical flexibility. In the Cup final victory, he had implemented the suggestion of the new technical director Jason Wilcox to play Bruno Fernandes as a false nine.

Wilcox was appointed last March and asked “to implement an overarching vision of play for the team”. Ten Hag’s willingness to consider his ideas was said to show he could work within “the new football structure”.

The new football structure will presumably be subject to ongoing review — if not a taskforce — if United lose at home to Liverpool this weekend.

Once again United approach this game feeling pessimistic after defeat at Brighton. Yet Liverpool’s form has been overstated and the control that Arne Slot wants at the expense of excitement will be harder to achieve against United.

Whether it is the football structure, Ten Hag or just the hostility of the atmosphere, United could find Liverpool’s midfield easier to dominate than they expect.

The overarching vision might not be a factor against Liverpool. Ten Hag has demonstrated a survivor’s instinct which has kept him going at a Manchester United being shaped by the minority shareholder.

How much longer that can sustain him remains to be seen. There weren’t many alternatives to Ten Hag in the summer but United might feel that someone like Gareth Southgate is the type of manager who works well reporting to line managers, presenting to taskforces and delivering the marginal gains beloved of Dave Brailsford, who sits on the committee overseeing football operations.

Liverpool’s new coach Slot wants his side to consider risk and reward more often in their football. Under Klopp, he believes there was too much risk. Caution could bring its own risk against United. There is a danger in it, especially against a manager like Ten Hag who needs victory to keep going and has nothing left to lose.