Gary Lineker has ripped into Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s reign as Manchester United owner, labelling the club “shambolic”, and Alan Shearer agrees.
Lineker has savaged the British tycoon for his “shambolic” tenure at Manchester United after a dismal 3-2 home loss to Nottingham Forest that saw United yet slumping to a new low for the season, which also saw the shock exit of sporting director Dan Ashworth after just five months in the hot seat.
The club now dangles uncomfortably at 13th in the Premier League table, teetering and tottering a mere 10 points above the relegation zone, with issues escalating both on and off the field. Addressing the situation on his The Rest Is Football podcast, Lineker clinically dissected Ratcliffe’s 10-month stewardship, saying: “Ratcliffe came in and everyone thought that all was going to be well, but it’s actually been more shambolic in many ways.
“We’ve seen the whole Erik ten Hag situation over the summer when they were interviewing other managers. They ended up going back to Ten Hag and giving him a contract, and then a few months later they fire him and there’s loads of compensation for that.”
The Match of the Day host added: “They brought Dan Ashworth in and now he’s out the door. They’ve put the ticket prices up and lots of fans are not happy about that. They’ve made big changes at the football club, they’ve moved out the women’s football team. It’s been a shambles.”
Alan Shearer agreed, noting: “Not only are they poor on the pitch, what on earth is going on off the pitch? I mean, it’s embarrassing to go out and get a guy [Ashworth] and for him to be on gardening leave for six months, he spent longer on gardening leave than he did in his position at Man United.
“They paid, what, £3million compensation for him and then he leaves, it’s a terrible look. What on earth is going on at that football club?”
Ruben Amorim, who replaced Ten Hag at the helm last month, began his tenure fairly brightly with two wins and one draw from his opening three games. But after two consecutive losses against Arsenal and Forest, tension is rapidly on the rise again at Old Trafford, especially with challenging fixtures against Manchester City and Tottenham to come in the next week or so.
Their grim predicament is made even gloomier by the club’s whopping expenditure on players in the recent years. During Ten Hag’s two-and-a-bit year reign, an eye-watering sum of nearly £600million was splashed on new players, and Lineker reckons Amorim will be scratching his head in total bewilderment wondering how the money was spent.
With Amorim eager to introduce a three-at-the-back system at United, additions are expected to be made in January. However, it’s understood that before the 39-year-old took over, Ratcliffe wanted the new manager to get the best out of the existing squad before approving another spending spree.
Yet, with problems mounting both on and off the field, the pressure to spend may be too great to resist.