Ratcliffe blasts ‘MEDIOCRE’ Man Utd in bombshell interview

Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has heavily criticised the state of the club in an eyebrow-raising interview.

The INEOS billionaire partially fulfilled his dream of acquiring his favourite club earlier this year when he bought a sizeable stake in Man Utd and took charge of sporting operations.

Ratcliffe has filled important positions in the club’s sporting hierarchy with his INEOS allies and highly-rated personalities from across English football in a bid to help Man Utd get back on their perch.

READ MORE: Man Utd invite USMNT wonderkid for trial

His first year of minority ownership has, however, not quite gone to plan. Man Utd endured their worst-ever start to a Premier League season and had to sack Erik ten Hag in late October.

With Ruben Amorim now in charge, things are looking up on the pitch, but Ratcliffe knows that he won’t be able to fix the club’s problems overnight.

Ratcliffe blasts ‘mediocre’ Man Utd

It has been a while since Ratcliffe last faced the media but he has now given an eyebrow-raising interview to Red Devils fanzine United We Stand in which he did not hold back when discussing the state of the club.

“The club has drifted for a long period of time, a decade or so. Manchester United has become mediocre,” he said. “It’s not elite and it is supposed to be one of the best football clubs in the world. That’s what it used to be under Alex [Ferguson].

READ MORE: Real Madrid eye possible Man Utd transfer – and Amorim won’t be happy

“There is major change to come to achieve elite status. But already there has been huge change at this club. Until were are as good as anyone in the world, then it’s not good enough for Manchester United. We must have the best recruitment in the world.

“Data analysis comes alongside recruitment. It doesn’t really exist here. We’re still in the last century on data analysis here. There’s an immense amount of useful data that we can get from data analysis and we’re in the ‘very poor’ bracket with data analysis here.

“These things don’t happen overnight. You can’t just flick a light switch and sort out recruitment. It’s all about people and we need to find the right people.”