Let me preface this by saying that I am happy that Glazers are not in charge of the sporting side any more.
However, I am not so excited with Ineos taking over, and let me explain why. In fact, I am quite nervous and somewhat apprehensive.
I'm an avid fan of another sport and specifically a team in which Ineos took over, back in 2019. The sport in question is cycling and the team in particular was Team Sky (now known as Team Ineos). Since their takeover, things have kind of collapsed for that team.
For context, in 2019 Team Sky were by far the most prestigious and dominant cycling team in the world, for the past decade. They had a conveyor belt of winners, nurtured talent (and other...more dubious things) and a winning mentality. From 2012 to 2019, they won 7/8 tour de frances and at one point, won 4 grand tours in a row. They did it with different riders, time after time. Nothing exemplified this more than 2019, when Chris Froome, Sky's best rider broke his leg 1 month before the tour de france. They ended up winning the tour de france with their 2nd best rider (Egan Bernal), and their 3rd best rider finished runner up (Geraint Thomas). The sporting side was run almost exclusively by David Brailsford and in co-operation with Sky, who in particular had a vested interest with James Murdoch having a huge personal love for cycling races.
After Comcast took over Sky, and James Murdoch was sidelined from the Sky leadership structure, Sky pulled their sponsorship and ownership of the team. In stepped Ratcliffe and Ineos. Since then, the team has fallen hugely from its heights.
1) Previously Sky had a huge transfer budget but use it very well. They were meticulous in their scouting, signing rather unknown riders and turning them into superstars. They used their vast budget to build a team, not a collection of superstars but couldn't ride together in a team. Under Ineos, this changed entirely. In one season they signed four GC GT riders (think, Galaticos basically) and tried to shove them into the same teams at Grand tours. It worked for smaller races but in the big races they crumbled. Riders started infighting, one rider wouldnt work for another and it kind of fell apart.
Now Ineos transfer strategy is "is he's doing amazingly well at youth levels, sign him". Cycling as a sport doesn't quite work like that, because the physiology of a rider peaks at different ages for different people. Someone dominating at U-21 and U-23's may not transition at all at World Tour level. Some of Ineos' signings like Magnus Sheffield, Tom Pidcock with that method have worked out well, but others like Lucas Plapp, Ben Tulett, Arensman etc have been a flop.
2) The meticulous of training and equipment and modern scientific methods and infrastructure have fallen a lot under Ineos. Peak sky were the masters of Time trialling, wind tunnel procedures, equipment calibration and innovation. Now they have fallen behind to the likes of Jumbo Visma, Quickstep, Team UAE etc. Their solution is to throw money at the problem but without a proper structure they've been unable to do so. Nothing was more apparent than the hiring of Dan Bigham. Bigham was seen as the Time trialing guru based on his knowledge of bikes, aerodynamics and positioning. He was hired...and then didnt have the power to actually implement anything within Team Ineos. He was hired as the marquee TT coach and then marginalized because Ineos thought he was a bit crazy and eccentric. Bear in mind this guy masterminded the Danish Track team to multiple world champions and olympic medals.
3) Ineos' coaching staff has been a revolving door hire and fire and rehire. Roger Hammond, hired in 2021, fired in 2023. Rod Ellingworth, fired in 2019, rehired in 2022, refired in 2023. Servais Knaven was let go end of 2022 for reasons unknown. All in all, there has been no stability in coaching and management at Team Ineos.
4) Scouting quality has collapsed under Ineos management. They missed out on the likes of Pogacar (although that was more a sky problem), Ayuso, Vingegaard, Gloag and instead banked on riders with better youth results like Carlos Rodriguez, Ethan Hayter, Luke Plapp. The latter riders are not bad, just not the generational talents of the former. As mentioned, Ineos' scouting culture is to look at results of U19 and U23 race results and just go "Yep, he won, he must be good."
Recently their strategy has been almost entirely that. Kim Heiduk, Michel Leonard etc are signings of "Their power numbers at such a young age is really good, they must be incredible!" Only for them to do nothing at the top level. Josh Tarling has been a revelation but he was so dominant that he was hard to miss. Same with Tom Pidcock.
5) Coaching quality has really suffered. Peaks aren't timed properly and riders are out of form / out of shape for the biggest races of the year. Take for example, Dani Martinez. At his best he is one of the worlds best, but at the Tour he was completely undercooked and didn't perform. The same can be said for the likes of Richard Carapaz back when he was at Ineos, Pavel Sivakov, Tao Geogeghan Hart (although constantly crashing doesn't help). Tom Pidcock, who is currently their best overall rider, is still very young and is doing a full Cyclocross season in Winter, The tour de france, the entire spring classics season, 1 week stage races and World champions AND Mountain bike racing mid Road season. He is going to burn out.
Compare and contrast to pre-Ineos, where the entire Sky Tour de france team was in peak form and nobody ever went into the big races under cooked or over cooked.
I know that cycling isn't transferable to Football but I don't have much optimism given that the above problems highlighted are all a result of incompetent Ineos management and their lack of coaching/sporting nous. The above highlights a misunderstanding of sporting structure and instead trying to throw money at the problem.
Under Sky management, there were forum/reddit threads of, "What can we do to stop Sky dominance of the sport." There were famous quotes on the cycling subreddit of things like "Cycling is a simple sport. It is a race where 160 riders toil for 21 days in the French summer through the Alps and Pyrennes and at the end of the race, Sky always win."
Now, Team Ineos are a meme.
Ultimately, I pray that Ineos succeed and bring us back to where we were but i am not optimistic.
