SIR JIM RATCLIFFE has blasted Manchester United’s transfer failures since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013.
The new United part-owner spoke candidly to Bloomberg Television as he laid bare the net spending tragedies and which club model he’s aiming for.
Ratcliffe said: “There is room for improvement everywhere. And we will improve everything because we need to be competing for the Premier League and Champions League.
“We need to be where Real Madrid is today. We are not there at the moment and it will take time. We cannot flick a switch.”
When quizzed on which club he wishes to build a template off, Ratcliffe said: “Real Madrid have done a fabulous job. There’s an interesting statistic which compares both United and Madrid.
“If you look at the 10 or 11 seasons since Ferguson and former chief executive David Gill left, during that time United’s net spend on players is now £1.1billion.
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“So United have not been mean with the cheque book, they’ve actually spent an awful lot of money.
“Real Madrid’s over that same period time is only £200m. Which is surprising when you hear that.
“Because today they have a squad where six players are valued at more than €100 million – whereas Man Utd do not have any players that are valued at that.
“And Madrid have built probably the finest football ground in the world, using the same cheque book.
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“If you compare those two sets of statistics, you can say that the quality of Real Madrid’s management has been better than the quality at United.”
Simply put, net spend is the difference between the money raised by a club through player sales and money spent by a club on purchasing new footballers.
When took to task on how much he is prepared to spend, he added: “The solution is not to buy a Kylian Mbappe. The first thing we need to do is build a balanced squad.”
Ratcliffe said he does not expect to solve all of United’s problems this summer as he warned it could take several transfer windows.
He is currently holding back on Jarrad Branthwaite’s transfer, believing that the £70m asking price is not reasonable from Everton.
This is stark difference to how United have done things in the past, after handing Leicester £78.3m for Harry Maguire without much complaint.
United’s ridiculous spending for players who have turned out to be quite lacklustre cannot be overstated.
Before Ratcliffe joined, the club spent millions on a host of flops, including £89.3m on Paul Pogba, £50m on Fred, £85m on Antony, and £60m on Mason Mount.
The INEOS CEO also sparred Erik ten Hag some of the blame for United’s worst-ever Premier League finish, after they only came eighth.
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He said: “The coach isn’t the central issue at Manchester United.”
United decided to stick with Ten Hag after he won the FA Cup, but only following an end-of-season review in which they interviewed a host of other managers.
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Katherine Walsh
