Are you confident of success in the INEOS era?

lexisonfire said:
There's a picture of Jim Ratcliffe celebrating INEOS Britannia's LV Cup win in Barcelona yesterday which will pit them against Team New Zealand in the America's Cup next week, doubt he's that involved in Utd's day to day operations. He fully owns INEOS Britannia and is listed as a Team Principal so that's likely his priority given that Britain have never won the America's Cup and last qualified for the final series in 1964. Winning the AC is a much bigger achievement than any trophy Utd could possibly garner in the near future, and I do hope the Team New Zealand gets beat so we see the back of the AC75s.
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I’ve an above average interest in sports. Football, athletics and skiing are my main interests, but I lend an eye to stuff like cycling, tennis, F1, Olympic oddities and even the American spectacles every now and then. Yet I have no idea what you’re even talking about here. That alone makes it impossible to entertain the notion that winning “the AC” could even be regarded as within the same order of magnitude of importance as a PL or CL win.

Not that United are anywhere near any of those trophies, of course :lol::(
 
Jed I. Knight said:
I’ve an above average interest in sports. Football, athletics and skiing are my main interests, but I lend an eye to stuff like cycling, tennis, F1, Olympic oddities and even the American spectacles every now and then. Yet I have no idea what you’re even talking about here. That alone makes it impossible to entertain the notion that winning “the AC” could even be regarded as within the same order of magnitude of importance as a PL or CL win.

Not that United are anywhere near any of those trophies, of course :lol::(
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Sailing is indeed a lot harder to learn and harder for laymen to understand. Just because it's called the America's Cup doesn't make it an American oddity, the first race took place in the 1850s at the Isle of Wight which makes it absurd that Britain has never actually won the damn thing. Team USA hasn't been too great at sailing in recent decades unlike the Brits, Aussies, NZers.
 
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No. No faith at all.

Ineos have been a shambles at Nice and seem to have not learned any lessons. They are currently still 9th in League 1 and have not really improved during their ownership.

Sir Dave Brailsford - I follow cycling and know this guys reputation in that arena after Team Sky...*cough* (sorry Asthma)... Team GB cycling - just watch the recent inquests to see a bit behind the curtain. He has no football exPerience and I fail to sEe what he Does or brings to the table.

Everyone sees Ineos as saviours as they are not the Glazers, but I have zero hope in Ineos doing anything substantial. We need a totally clean slate of both the Glazers and Ineos before this gets any better, let alone ETH who I am amazed is still here.
 
The Glazers are still lurking behind the scene.

While they are involved it will be same ol' shit show.
 
MadDogg said:
Not qualifying for the CL next season carries some pretty big financial hits. Not just the normal loss of revenue from the CL (which is pretty damn big), but there are also clauses in some of our sponsorship deals that if we don't qualify for the CL two years in a row the money we get from those sponsors drop by a significant amount. Somehow despite all our issues over the last decade we've never triggered those clauses before, as we've always made the CL at least every second season.

Actually, just googling it and it sounds like that may have changed, or at least the Adidas kit sponsorship anyway. Instead of losing 30% if we don't qualify two years in a row (which would have been about £22m), it's going to be a £10 loss every season we don't qualify. So I guess for next season specifically it won't hurt as much as it would have under the previous deal.

But that £10m loss in sponsorship from Adidas (and almost certainly more from other sponsors) plus not getting the money from the CL itself has a very significant impact on our finances over the next couple of years. INEOS will certainly care about the results this season due to that.
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I really don't think so. Again, if this season's results were important to your planning, you wouldn't have made an 18 year old defender carrying an issue that would likely see him sidelined for a while as your priority signing. You wouldn't have gone about squad building betting on Mainoo to be a world class midfielder this season, his second as a pro. You wouldn't have bet on Garnacho and Rashford to provide enough goals. You wouldn't have bet on Luke Shaw's fitness.

One of those? Sure. All of those? No chance. I think it's mostly down to possibilities, who was available and what could be done, but this team you've built for this season, under this manager, screams "this season's results won't negatively affect our planning"
 
I’m no fan of their performances with football teams however United were so broke, we have to give them 3 full years to see them improve and turn this club fortunes around. So far if I was rating them I’d give them a B- must do better, show more urgency and less spin, and be more clinical with the hard decisions, it’s very simple a Club of Man United Stature can not be 14th in their domestic league out of 20 teams and 21st in the European second division out of 36 teams.

If Ancelotti was 7th in his domestic league and got dumped out of the CL in the group stage, no matter that he’s won 5CL, a domestic title in all the 5 big Leagues, Madrid would sack him!
 
I have zero confidence in them. Our recruiting looks the same. The level of play looks worse every year including this one. Sticking with TEN hag was a huge risk that doesn’t look like it’s paying off either. At least they fixed the tunnel though.
 
I'm still pretty confident about the new footballing structure. I don't think INEOS are making the footballing decisions, even though the people who are report to them. I think the appointments of Wilcox, Ashworth and Berrada are very positive. The only major thing I feel they've got wrong since they all came into the picture was giving into Bruno's contract demands, and I think it's very Woodward-esque.

I suspect that ETH will be sacked Monday, but it could also be a day or two later which will make this forum a bit fun.

I'd like for them to spell out the footballing vision too, the preferred game model.

We saw with Rangnick that even just one person with the adequate knowledge could have accelerated the process of improving the team (he pointed to a few players who'd have been available back then for a lot less than they are now, and would have improved us).
 
TheReligion said:
Yep. Total misinformation being posted by @Bluelion7
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Ignoring the important question, as usual. I flipped A shares and B shares around when reading and it was an older article where they listed an additional shareholder? The voting rights appear differently than the ownership share..

But honestly, you could raise that figure to 30% for Ineos. That wasn’t the crux of the question: how much control do Ineos actually have? If someone knows, I’m genuinely curious. I was answering one of your fans, who frankly posted one of the only poignant questions on here: could the deal with Ineos actual damage United’s chances to be rid of and recover from the Glazers. And it’s a good question.

Did they define what constitutes “footballing operations” and what doesn’t in writing? Did they even agree to that at all in writing? Do they have power to hire for open positions, but need approval for monetary buyouts? Can the people they hire pick players, but not how much can be spent?

If you do know, fantastic, would love to hear about it. Because all I see are references to Ineos “being the owners now” … but they aren’t. They are minority stake holders until things change. But they are acting as flak jackets for the Glazers.

Did the Glazers give Carte Blanche control of United’s yearly revenue for 25-29% ?
 
Well, I'm uncertain to be honest. They kept ten Hag despite the worst PL finish ever. They signed Zirkzee to solve our scoring drought which was a ridiculous decision. They paid 60 million for an 18 years old who had only a year left of his contract. Mistake after mistake. However, things can turn out good but they are definitely got off to a bad start.
 
Well we have to at least give them a season and two summer transfer windows, before we judge whether they will succeed or not. Their over arching structure of people above the manager wasnt in place until July. Then they have got to get used to the enormous job managing the biggest club in England is.
The fact the parasites have sucked the club dry and still the majority holders doesnt help either. The elephant in the room, the manager who they didnt pick, is also a thorn in their side. I am hoping it works out, (You cant judge what they have done with littler clubs in foreign leagues either. Its a different kettle of fish), time will tell.
 
They're not magicians. We want them to be ruthless yet we keep on applauding shit performances week in week out. Even Ten Hag got a petition after a disasterous 8th place finish with close to zero goal differences

Standards have well and trully broken, we deserve this, this is our standard when players like Rashford and Bruno stinking out the place yet are given all the support and even captaincy.

Stupidity after stupidity in decision making, hiring moyes, hiring Ole, clamoring for Ruud to take over, giving Ten Haag 3 years etc.

We need to demand more and set our standard
 
FrenchRed said:
No. No faith at all.

Ineos have been a shambles at Nice and seem to have not learned any lessons. They are currently still 9th in League 1 and have not really improved during their ownership.

Sir Dave Brailsford - I follow cycling and know this guys reputation in that arena after Team Sky...*cough* (sorry Asthma)... Team GB cycling - just watch the recent inquests to see a bit behind the curtain. He has no football exPerience and I fail to sEe what he Does or brings to the table.

Everyone sees Ineos as saviours as they are not the Glazers, but I have zero hope in Ineos doing anything substantial. We need a totally clean slate of both the Glazers and Ineos before this gets any better, let alone ETH who I am amazed is still here.
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If INEOS were making the decisions themselves, I'd be a lot more worried as well. But they've put in place the likes of Berrada, Ashworth and Wilcox that should be the main ones making the decisions. Obviously INEOS will be advising them and will be involved to some extent, but as long as the experts are the main ones calling the shots then it should work out.
 
Bluelion7 said:
Ignoring the important question, as usual. I flipped A shares and B shares around when reading and it was an older article where they listed an additional shareholder? The voting rights appear differently than the ownership share..

But honestly, you could raise that figure to 30% for Ineos. That wasn’t the crux of the question: how much control do Ineos actually have? If someone knows, I’m genuinely curious. I was answering one of your fans, who frankly posted one of the only poignant questions on here: could the deal with Ineos actual damage United’s chances to be rid of and recover from the Glazers. And it’s a good question.

Did they define what constitutes “footballing operations” and what doesn’t in writing? Did they even agree to that at all in writing? Do they have power to hire for open positions, but need approval for monetary buyouts? Can the people they hire pick players, but not how much can be spent?

If you do know, fantastic, would love to hear about it. Because all I see are references to Ineos “being the owners now” … but they aren’t. They are minority stake holders until things change. But they are acting as flak jackets for the Glazers.

Did the Glazers give Carte Blanche control of United’s yearly revenue for 25-29% ?
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I doubt anyone not involved in the deal knows for certain. But the fact that INEOS came in and not only bought in a new DoF and Technical Director (which was expected) but instantly changed the CEO itself really does indicate that they now have full control of everything at the club. I'm sure there are clauses in the contract that if certain financial targets aren't met that things will revert to Glazers having a larger say (they will obviously have protection from INEOS running the club into real financial trouble), but for now the most likely scenario is that the Glazers really aren't involved at all.

The way the deal is set up does indicate that the Glazers (or at least the majority of them) are looking to fully sell in the future, with Ratcliffe being in a strong position to be the one to buy them out. They just wanted more than what anyone was willing to give them now, so doing it this way will make them more money in the long term. So with that seemingly being the end game for both the Glazers and Ratcliffe, it's not surprising that Ratcliffe is effectively acting with full control already.

The interesting thing will be if Ratcliffe puts a significant amount of his own money into the stadium rebuild. I doubt he'd do that while owning only 29% of the club, so I'm guessing more shares will be issued to him in the same way as the extra shares he's received for the $300m he's invested into the club this year. I'm not sure of the timeline there though, whether it'd be in one big bundle of shares or whether it'd be multiple smaller bundles seeing as the stadium will take years to build. But at the end of it he'd own significantly more than just 29% and he'd be one step closer to majority ownership.

Now obviously most of what I've got in this post is conjecture, but it does seem to be the scenario that makes the most sense for all parties.
 
lexisonfire said:
There's a picture of Jim Ratcliffe celebrating INEOS Britannia's LV Cup win in Barcelona yesterday which will pit them against Team New Zealand in the America's Cup next week, doubt he's that involved in Utd's day to day operations. He fully owns INEOS Britannia and is listed as a Team Principal so that's likely his priority given that Britain have never won the America's Cup and last qualified for the final series in 1964. Winning the AC is a much bigger achievement than any trophy Utd could possibly garner in the near future, and I do hope the Team New Zealand gets beat so we see the back of the AC75s.
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The banter outcome is NZ win yet again, and he’s routinely asked by the football press “What went wrong”, “why should Manchester United fans trust you with a football team if you can’t win at boats”.

Or INEOS Brittania fail, and EtH is asked for comment on it. And, like Radcliffe, instead of saying ‘no comment’, he trots out ‘Jim is a nice guy, yadda yadda’.
 
Bluelion7 said:
Ignoring the important question, as usual. I flipped A shares and B shares around when reading and it was an older article where they listed an additional shareholder? The voting rights appear differently than the ownership share..

But honestly, you could raise that figure to 30% for Ineos. That wasn’t the crux of the question: how much control do Ineos actually have? If someone knows, I’m genuinely curious. I was answering one of your fans, who frankly posted one of the only poignant questions on here: could the deal with Ineos actual damage United’s chances to be rid of and recover from the Glazers. And it’s a good question.

Did they define what constitutes “footballing operations” and what doesn’t in writing? Did they even agree to that at all in writing? Do they have power to hire for open positions, but need approval for monetary buyouts? Can the people they hire pick players, but not how much can be spent?

If you do know, fantastic, would love to hear about it. Because all I see are references to Ineos “being the owners now” … but they aren’t. They are minority stake holders until things change. But they are acting as flak jackets for the Glazers.

Did the Glazers give Carte Blanche control of United’s yearly revenue for 25-29% ?
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No. From my understanding, The Glazers hold 97% of controlling shares in the club. The Radcliffe shares cannot dictate the direction of travel for Manchester United the company.

Obviously there are layers of legal positions in there. But the Glazers still own Manchester United.
 
lexisonfire said:
Sailing is indeed a lot harder to learn and harder for laymen to understand. Just because it's called the America's Cup doesn't make it an American oddity, the first race took place in the 1850s at the Isle of Wight which makes it absurd that Britain has never actually won the damn thing. Team USA hasn't been too great at sailing in recent decades unlike the Brits, Aussies, NZers.
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I was imprecise. By "American oddities" I was referring to the three letter leagues. From your post, I gather that the sport in question was sailing. I had no idea!
 
This is their third big test. They failed the first two (extending ETH, extending Bruno) - hopefully this time it's different.
 
If they look at this game as a positive result that warrants more patience, then we're in for another era in the circus with more clowns at the helm.
 
If ETH is still here after the international break, I'll lose any confidence. It was already heavily questioned after they kept him in the summer

Early signs were good sorting the backroom staff etc but they're writing off this season in keeping him
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
The banter outcome is NZ win yet again, and he’s routinely asked by the football press “What went wrong”, “why should Manchester United fans trust you with a football team if you can’t win at boats”.

Or INEOS Brittania fail, and EtH is asked for comment on it. And, like Radcliffe, instead of saying ‘no comment’, he trots out ‘Jim is a nice guy, yadda yadda’.
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Thankfully sailing is beyond the comprehension of fitba journalists, they can't understand the physics of wind power much less hydrofoiling.

Ineos came from behind to win the challenger series, they weren't the favourites and folks were calling Ainslie overrated or a bad team player despite his Olympic wins. I do hope he does win it because he's
getting up in age and no other British sailor can fundraise as effectively but NZ are the ones who developed the AC75 and they'll have a few tricks up their sleeve....
 
ElDiabloRojo said:
The Glazers are still lurking behind the scene.

While they are involved it will be same ol' shit show.
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I don't think so. They're absentee landlords. They've never really been involved. They're just leeches.
Woziak said:
I’m no fan of their performances with football teams however United were so broke, we have to give them 3 full years to see them improve and turn this club fortunes around. So far if I was rating them I’d give them a B- must do better, show more urgency and less spin, and be more clinical with the hard decisions, it’s very simple a Club of Man United Stature can not be 14th in their domestic league out of 20 teams and 21st in the European second division out of 36 teams.

If Ancelotti was 7th in his domestic league and got dumped out of the CL in the group stage, no matter that he’s won 5CL, a domestic title in all the 5 big Leagues, Madrid would sack him!
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Agreed. They need to have some time. I'll wait until they appoint the new manager.
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
6 months on and they still haven’t terminated his contract. They are a joke.
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So a totally new ownership is a joke for not sacking the manager within half a season of taking over?
 
My only worry is we don't seem to be building a young core that will carry us forward in the five-six years. Every top team - City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea - seem to have a very talented young core. It is inevitable that they will reap the benefits in the future.

With our recruitment strategy, we have a group of sharply declined aging players, deadwood, or questionable young players. The Sakas, Fodens, Palmers, Haalands, TAAs are all elsewhere. We need to keep investing heavily in acquiring new players in the foreseeable future, unlike some of our direct rivals. That is not sustainable.

Unless we fix our recruitment team, we will continue to languish as a midtable team.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
No. From my understanding, The Glazers hold 97% of controlling shares in the club. The Radcliffe shares cannot dictate the direction of travel for Manchester United the company.

Obviously there are layers of legal positions in there. But the Glazers still own Manchester United.
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The Glazers have (or at least will once Ratcliffe's final $100m investment happens by the end of the year) 68% of the voting power. Ratcliffe will have 29%. The combined amount of everyone else with their Class A shares is then the final 3%.

 
Too early to tell.

But I don’t see us winning the league or CL till the 2030s and probably mid / second half that decade the way we are going. Ineos will stumble and fall before they get it right - if the do, that is.
 
TheLord said:
My only worry is we don't seem to be building a young core that will carry us forward in the five-six years. Every top team - City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea - seem to have a very talented young core. It is inevitable that they will reap the benefits in the future.

With our recruitment strategy, we have a group of sharply declined aging players, deadwood, or questionable young players. The Sakas, Fodens, Palmers, Haalands, TAAs are all elsewhere. We need to keep investing heavily in acquiring new players in the foreseeable future, unlike some of our direct rivals. That is not sustainable.

Unless we fix our recruitment team, we will continue to languish as a midtable team.
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We are building a young core. The question is whether they are good enough as that’s very much doubtful right now.

Hojlund, Zirkzee, Amad, Antony, Yoro, Ugarte and Mainoo are all Beth young with Martinez, Masroui, Ligt, Dalot, Rashford and even Onana all at the ideal age. But how many of those can you see in a title challenging team of the whole was at their potential level? Very few and that’s the issue - we need to buy young I agree and build for the future but we need a group of Mainoo’s rather than players who struggle for trap the ball.
 
At least the defence and goalkeeping is much better now with the number of clean sheets achieved.
 
Captmfla said:
At least the defence and goalkeeping is much better now with the number of clean sheets achieved.
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Clean sheets. Never thought I would ever hear a United manager boasting about clean sheets. I don’t know how Fergie sits through this every week as he comes to watch.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Too early to tell.

But I don’t see us winning the league or CL till the 2030s and probably mid / second half that decade the way we are going. Ineos will stumble and fall before they get it right - if the do, that is.
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Their history with the Swiss club, Nice and their other sporting ventures suggests that they don't seem to get it right. Similar promises were made at both the football clubs they own and now seven and five years down the line, respectively, those clubs are in a similar, if not worse, state then when they were acquired by INEOS.

Laussane-sport were promised the old glory days and the return to the champions league. They have been relegated twice in their seven years and have never made the CL.

Nice haven't finished in CL places even once in the 5 years under INEOS either. Funnily enough, they have finished either 5th or 9th in those five years and currently lie in 9th. :lol:
 
I'm starting to wonder if this seasons transfers were Ten Hags or Ineos.

I think it was Ineos with giving ten hag's targets an equal opportunity.

I'm disappointed in signing Mazroui not because he isn't good - but it would have been great to have a RWB that a new manager could utilise than a defensive fullback like Mazroui.

Maybe we signed Ugarte after trying for Wieffer who we were linked with.

Whilst I'm not giving up on players until they play under a better manager - I do wonder if this 10/10 summer transfer window was Ineos or Ten Hag's.
 
I never thought I would be in a situation where I would have felt like Woody/Arnold would have handled something better, but here we are
 
Insanity said:
Their history with the Swiss club, Nice and their other sporting ventures suggests that they don't seem to get it right. Similar promises were made at both the football clubs they own and now seven and five years down the line, respectively, those clubs are in a similar, if not worse, state then when they were acquired by INEOS.

Laussane-sport were promised the old glory days and the return to the champions league. They have been relegated twice in their seven years and have never made the CL.

Nice haven't finished in CL places even once in the 5 years under INEOS either. Funnily enough, they have finished either 5th or 9th in those five years and currently lie in 9th. :lol:
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I meant to be fair, the management there isn’t the management here so if we hire the right people for Manchester United they can succeed regardless of what happened at Nice.

At the same time I don’t feel like this decade will be very different from the last - some cups and some top 4 finishes.
 
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