Ineos have become the face of unpopular decisions at Manchester United but at least there’s always been a “good for the club” rationale behind them.
From redundancies in the staff to make room in the Financial Fair Play and Profit and Sustainability Rules column to leaving Ruben Amorim short in the January window, the bottom line has mattered the most.
The idea is that short-term pain will put the club in better shape going forward but what they’ve just done doesn’t align with that idea.
In fact, it’s something previous Man Utd managers have long hated and Amorim’s isn’t expected to be a fan of either. They’re playing a dangerous game.
Ineos plans can ruin Ruben Amorim’s proper first season
The season wasn’t a write-off when Amorim arrived but it was always a “train on the job” scenario which is why after a barrage of negative results, it’s a write-off now.
Europa League is an aim and FA Cup provides some hope but after the injury to Amad, that has taken a blow, with Man Utd fans eager to rest and reset afresh for next season.
Amorim will be thankful to have proper time on the training pitch and friendly games to prepare his team in the pre-season.
Or at least that was his idea…
The Athletic report that United have added a trip to Atlanta, New Jersey, and Chicago at the end of July to their pre-season plans.
That comes in addition to a game at the Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego and stops in Hong Kong and Malaysia which is expected to net them about £7.9 million.
While the money is well and good, that’s easily more than 10,000 miles of travel across multiple timezone changes at a time when Amorim just needs to work on his squad at full fitness with minimum distractions.
Man Utd playing a dangerous game
This decision is arguably the first time that Ineos can be put alongside the Glazers in terms of putting financial reward over sporting performance, never a good company to keep.
Besides the obvious fatigue of traveling the globe, the pitches in these countries, the astroturf in the USA in particular, are not good for the body, leading to an increased chance of non-contact injuries.
Fans would still remember Jose Mourinho standing outside in pelting rain and a waterlogged pitch in China before a friendly that would eventually get called off, so bad were the conditions.
“The pitch and the conditions of my players are more important than results in pre-season. It’s not a problem for me to lose matches in pre-season. It’s a problem for me, bad conditions for my players to train and bad conditions for my players to play,” Jose Mourinho said at the time.
Apparently, nobody told Ineos that, who are playing a dangerous game at United by putting Amorim’s first proper pre-season at stake for a few extra million.
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