No ticket prices shouldn’t go up. They remain cheap in Germany. Clubs should not be businesses but community clubs for the fans. There’s plenty of places to make money; TV rights, sponsorship, hospitality. Don’t need to exploit local fans.
Club ownership | Senior management team talk
- Thread starter golden_blunder
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran discuss a horrific month of December and a depressing FOUR defeats in a row - the latest coming against Wolves and Newcastle.
They discuss how much blame is on Ruben Amorim and rank our squad against other Premier League teams.
Do we have any chance of avoiding defeat at Anfield?
The increase in ticket prices were long overdue and that's coming from me, a season ticket holder. They were frozen for over a decade. I wouldn't have been complaining if they had stayed at the same price but it would be pretty unrealistic.
It’s not about arguing the opposite it’s just the reality of the situation that it’s going to take time, it hasn’t even been a year since the purchase was approved, Berrada didn’t arrive until the summer and Wilcox started in April. They might be a bunch of clowns but even if they are all brilliant it’s not a quick fix.
The club is in such a poor state on and off the pitch and requires so much time, money and effort spent on it that all we can do is wait and see. INEOS have made mistakes and they’ll make more I’m sure, but I do think there were and are completely unrealistic expectations about how quickly this will improve.
Sadly we may not even have hit rock bottom yet.
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This is a very reasonable position to take, especially when you are directly affected. Respect.
Why are people ignoring the fact that the Glazers are still the majority owners?
Fine if you think it's Ineos coming up with these ideas to cut costs, but the Glazers are not doing anything to stop it either.
Agree with roboc7, don't think we've seen rock bottom yet. Rock bottom hits when they start walking away from transfer deals. That's when people are really going to start to riot.
Some part of me agrees though. They need to bring in new players but they can't just say name your price. They need to be able to walk away and say "Fine player, but just doesn't meet our valuation. Good day.'
My fear would be with the fan base and the punditry, people are going to lose their minds. The big test will be if they crack and bring in players at 2 or 3 times their worth and can't deal with that pressure or will club just move on and maybe that means another 8th or 10th place finish but they need to restore some sort of sanity in the transfer market.
Some part of me agrees though. They need to bring in new players but they can't just say name your price. They need to be able to walk away and say "Fine player, but just doesn't meet our valuation. Good day.'
My fear would be with the fan base and the punditry, people are going to lose their minds. The big test will be if they crack and bring in players at 2 or 3 times their worth and can't deal with that pressure or will club just move on and maybe that means another 8th or 10th place finish but they need to restore some sort of sanity in the transfer market.
Personally, I feel, from what they've said especially, that we are not going to be going for the major established well experienced expensive players anymore. So they'll never be in that kind of position where they'll have to walk away often.
The strategy they'll go for will be a more high risk high reward strategy, where they identify players will immense potential (relatively unknown players) or midtable club players who have shown some good moments/seasons. They're going to assemble that type of squad I believe.
So we are either heading towards permanent midtable status, or with all the changes at the club, we will be challenging for more titles more often.
Think they done that with Branthwaite at Everton didnt they. We got De ligt instead
I dont like us building for 343 . What if this doesn't work and Ruben is sacked next year? Will you look for a manager who has a specialized knowledge in 343 or will rebuild again?
A team should be smart enough to play all formations without any major rebuild.
A team should be smart enough to play all formations without any major rebuild.
Cheers mate. Just wish the standard of football reflected the rise.This is a very reasonable position to take, especially when you are directly affected. Respect.
With the amount of overpriced shite the club has bought in over the past decade, most fans would welcome a more pragmatic approach to buying players. I think most fans backed Ineos for not paying what Everton were looking for for Brantwaith.
It could be that Ratcliffe is playing 3d chess with all this penny pinching. Putting the word out on the street that United doesn't have 2 bob to rub together, so that when we do look to buy a player, we don't get charged the "United tax" of 25-50% over the odds!
But I think the truth is simpler, he's just a mean miserable bastard.
Amen.
Will standard tickets go up by much next year? Considering going over but don't want to get fleeced by Scrooge McMuffface
Completely agree with others we have definitely not hit rock bottom yet, gutting there is no full sale option to take club away from Ratcliffe and the leeches.
Right now I wouldn't want him doing that
Man doesn't have the money to fund the stadium by himself, no way he can fund the purchase without borrowing big. If minority ownership has him cutting big money spends like 40k a year to charity, I shudder to think what he will do in the name of costs savings as a majority owner.
Let's just say he isn't as generous as Abravovich, who was willing to fund/build the stadium.
Why are we all so adamant this is Ratcliffe/INEOS? I thought he was in charge of footballing operations? Where does staff bonus etc fall into footballing side?
Are we sure this isn’t the Glazers saying “No dividends for us, nothing for you” and the papers just running hit pieces on Ratcliffe?
Are we sure this isn’t the Glazers saying “No dividends for us, nothing for you” and the papers just running hit pieces on Ratcliffe?
No such thing. Good players can perform multiple roles. The only "Specialist" position is the LWB/RWB, Amorim has traditionally used wingers/attacking fullbacks there. No reason why those players can't adapt to their standard roles if things go south and he has to leave.
Fans overcomplicate things. Formation is the least relevant aspect and Amorim has said that many times
Don't agree.
The actual money being brought in is minimal in the short term and all it does is piss fans off. United could make money investing in better food and drink facilities for "ordinary" matchgoing fans.
Longer term, the club wants to move away from Season Tickets and go down the match by match hospitality route (which is what the Glazers wanted to do years). It would be a shame if that happens and be the final nail in the coffin for our support.
Nah, this definitely feels like it's something Jim has had heavy input in. Even if it's not him directly, he's still involved. The Glazers are definitely in the backseat now, especially without Woodward
He's just an uber capitalist doing capitalist things, with no regard for any sense of fairness etc. What a hero.
No chance this happens. The guaranteed income of STs is vital for any business, no way they'd resort to having to try sell out game by game, far too much risk involved. What source are you using to say that this is what the Glazers have wanted to do for years?
I agree somewhat with this but the club has lost over £300m in just the past few years, it's unsustainable for much longer, the fact that we're in so much debt and had to take out a revolving credit facility to just keep going is frightening and it's a road to financial ruin. Not to mention the need for a new stadium. They do need to cut costs and drive revenue growth and do it fast. My issue is that I'd rather they started the cuts at the top, like the players earning millions, than the working class.
I actually did an event with the foundation last month.
Had a long conversation with the lad on the right.
I’d just like to say it’s such a well run charity and the amount of good they do is fantastic. It really saddens me to hear this is also getting cut.
This might make sense if any other PL club is or ever has been charging £66 for a child or confession ticket, or if United's ticket prices were completely out of sync with what other teams tend to charge relative to location, demand, etc.
Neither of these are true though. Also the idea that part of United's downfall is due to them not ripping off fans enough is bizarre. The club for a majority of the post SAF period has brought in more income from fans and sponsorships than nearly every other football club in the world. It also has the largest capacity stadium in England.
And what other hard hitting decisions needed to be made that are going to help the club get back on its feet? Not giving insignificant sums of money to charity? Not allowing staff to celebrate Christmas? INEOS have wasted more money hiring and sacking one of their own employees than they'll save from that in 300 years.
Not to mention this whole "Sir Jim saving us from the Glazers" narrative is ridiculous considering he chose to go into business with them, so it's actually more accurate to say he's cone in to help/save them.
At this point I'm convinced some of you are just wumming for the sake of it.
It won't have been £250k. Maximum £80k.
It wasn't meant to save money though, it was meant to show who's the boss here.
They are being RUTHLESS. Imagine what we will be able to do with the £1million it saves.
We'll use it to offset the cost of the pest control we'll need on a retainer
I really don't buy the 'cost saving/incredibly frugal' angle at all. If they were truly laser focused on that, then they're absolute idiots because basically the best decision they had to make up to date (manager's job in the Summer), they made the single most financially irresponsible choice they could have made by needlessly triggering extension on ten Hag's contract which meant firing him down the line (which they ended up doing rather quickly) was going to cost millions more than it would have otherwise.
They're simply trying to put their stamp on operations and show the regular folk at the club that they mean absolutely nothing to them and that going forward this is how this will be. Quite common in business, though also at the same time it's been proven to be quite inefficient in the long term as you struggle with retention / quality of work.
Any chance of protests soon?
I honestly preferred the glazers with full control , just when you think we couldn't become anymore soulless ineos have come along and achieved this
Better the red devil you know, eh?
I just can't get my head around this view point.
They are the ones that have caused the complete demise of the club as we knew it in Premiership era, yet you'd prefer they were still in control? Which lets face it as majority owners they actually still are.
Well, the last two lines of your post are spot on.
Expecting fans to pay extra whilst the club still spends hundreds of millions on (mostly average) new players seems so wrong.
Think the penny has dropped with at least some fans, Ineos are not here to counter the effects of glazers on man utd, it's to turbocharge it. Which is why they sold some of their stake to them. Wtf has the foundation got to do with footballing operations? Unfortunately as in real life, there's plenty of folk who seem to think billionaires always know best.
Much more likely if we keep loosing. Serves INEOs right as well. All that nonsense about marginal gains etc, when it appears to be callous exploitative nonsense designed to maximise profits above all else, making a mockery of the proles.