As a self-made man Sir Jim Ratcliffe may relish his role this summer as chief barker in Manchester United’s push to sell so they can upgrade the squad. The ruthless arena of the transfer market will be a serious test of his new United era and a rude awakening could await. With funds shrunk from the £200m-plus of previous windows to a minuscule base sum of about £35m, the billionaire waits for the window to open on 14 June knowing business must be drummed up to sizeably increase the budget.
Ratcliffe seeks, preferably, to trade players of high value who will also relieve the books of their lucrative salaries. Having to offload squad members before recruiting a better quality of footballer is the basic tenet of team building that has not previously concerned mega-bucks United. Now, profitability and sustainability rules have ended the splurge years as an age of austerity hits the record 20-times champions, as it does other clubs.
Yet Ratcliffe, who controls football policy, embarks on his task with United in a latest state of flux, the 71-year-old unable to draw upon the expertise of the top two executives who would normally drive transfers and leave him as the man to merely sign off deals.
Omar Berrada, Ratcliffe’s incoming chief executive, is still on gardening leave, as is Dan Ashworth, the sporting director. Whereas Berrada is expected to be freed from the terms of his departure from Manchester City to begin work soon, Ashworth may not arrive from Newcastle until the season has commenced. This means Jason Wilcox, the technical director, is leading transfer policy, alongside Ratcliffe and Ratcliffe’s key adviser, Sir Dave Brailsford, with Jean-Claude Blanc deputising for Berrada. If this is no ideal way to operate in Ratcliffe’s opening venture into the febrile football market since becoming United’s largest minority owner, equally questionable is still not having clarity over next season’s manager.
No Mensa IQ is required to comprehend that the priority for any potential signing is to know who he will play for, and how this manager sees him fitting in. Erik ten Hag remains in a limbo that has stretched for almost two weeks. Clarity is expected on Friday but whether this will occur is unclear.
As challenging for Ratcliffe will be generating the money required to enhance the squad given who can be sold. Alejandro Garnacho, Kobbie Mainoo and Rasmus Højlund are in the band of United’s most attractive assets yet are deemed untouchables, the youthful trio considered the present and long-term future of the club.
Serious offers for Bruno Fernandes would begin at a minimum £70m but the captain is rated by Ratcliffe et al as United’s finest footballer. There is no push to sell but the Portuguese wants an increase on his salary of about £220,000 a week to be in the top bracket of United earners at £300,000-a-week-plus and is keen to know the club’s direction, so the dilly-dallying over the manager cannot have impressed.
Marcus Rashford is of the same approximate value and may be more expendable but if Paris Saint-Germain do not come calling can another club match his £365,000 a week salary? And despite having just finished a dismal eight-goal season, the previous one yielded a career-high 30, and a cocktail of pace, verve and unpredictability may be of the type that Ratcliffe will judge requires retaining.
The next bracket down offers one potential material increase to the transfer kitty and one surer bet. Jadon Sancho has two years left on his deal and selling him may fill the coffers with a welcome £55m-65m, £15m of which would be from saved salary. But if Ten Hag is sacked the winger may try to revive his United career having been loaned to Borussia Dortmund in January after his fallout with the manager.
More certain is how, at 32, Casemiro is expected to depart for a Saudi Arabian club and in doing so a fee of about £15m plus £37m in saved salary would draw in about £50m.
From here the prospect of any serious yield would be derived in cumulative sales rather than a single piece of business. Mason Greenwood and Victor Lindelöf may fetch £15m each, while Scott McTominay and Harry Maguire would, perhaps, go for £50m between them. The sum total for Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Diogo Dalot and Tyrell Malacia could run to £60m but losing three-quarters of the senior full-back ranks (Luke Shaw is the other one) is not practical.
If a reasonable estimate is that a minimum of £100m can be added to the base £35m allocation by executing some of the above, there is no easy route to this. Yet Ratcliffe, with a sharp mind for numbers and aided by his “marginal gains” guru Brailsford, surely modelled and war-gamed potential strategy as soon as his 27.7% buy-in became official.
Now the time for simulations is over and the serious stuff of preparing for the 2024-25 term starts. To be United’s saviour Ratcliffe has to reverse the 11 years of decline since the last league title of the glittering Sir Alex Ferguson era by reaching 2 September and the window’s close with a squad greatly improved. To do so he must move nimbly.
After Ten Hag’s listing side finished in a Premier League era-low of eighth, Ratcliffe’s United project faces a defining few months.
