The problems at Manchester United have reared their face again after the victory against Manchester City was followed by two demoralising defeats.
While there was a lot of hope and something to build upon despite losing to Spurs, the loss to Bournemouth at Old Trafford was a lot more difficult to take.
It had the whiff of Erik ten Hag’s final days as the team missed chance after chance and individual errors due to pressure gifted the opposition goals on a platter.
Ruben Amorim has a massive job on his hands and needs all the support he can get because the problems at United don’t limit themselves to just the pitch.
The culture off the pitch sets the tone which gets reflected on the matchday so the Man Utd manager will be grateful for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s latest stance which is in stark contrast to what has doomed managers at the club before him.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s firm stand at Man Utd
As the euphoria of Ineos’ arrival at Old Trafford has worn off, they’ve been subjected to the same level of scrutiny that the Glazers used to get.
It hasn’t helped that Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s decisions have rarely been crowd-pleasers while the situation on the pitch becomes darker with effectively every game.
The new regime has done a lot of good but their bad has recently started getting magnified and it’s mainly due to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s statements and actions.
One stand he’s taken recently will slightly tilt that scale back to the positive side, which is his stand on the Marcus Rashford situation.
It was recently reported that Sir Jim Ratcliffe will leave the Rashford decision to Amorim, not interfering at all with how he wants to handle that situation.
So far, Rashford has been left out of three consecutive matchday squads and Amorim’s latest comments on Rashford weren’t too positive either.
While Amorim isn’t all responsible for Rashford’s unhappiness, he’s the first point of contact for any player at the club so for the ownership to keep it that way instead of undermining the manager is the exact kind of backing former managers could have used.
Player power doomed Man Utd managers
Looking back at Man Utd’s history after Sir Alex Ferguson, one can find an example of player power winning over the manager under every man in the dugout.
Be it Jose Mourinho not being allowed to sell Anthony Martial, or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer not allowed to sell Paul Pogba, every manager who’s been at the club has a tale of not being heard.
It led to a culture where the players could down their tools when they wanted the manager sacked, safe in the knowledge that the man in the dugout was their safety net for underperformance.
Every man paid that price with his job, while the players sat on lucrative contracts until they wanted to find a new club or ran down their contracts because no other club was ever going to pay them that money.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been extremely hands-on with the operations at United so for this stance to emerge on a player who’s effectively the symbol of Man Utd’s academy, it signals the end of player power at United.
After dooming multiple managers, United finally have the ideal combination of a competent board with a stable manager, and that is imperative to usher in a cultural reboot.
Amorim can’t be the next victim of player power, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe looks well on his way to ensuring that doesn’t happen.
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