“It is coming up to two years since Sir Jim Ratcliffe got his hands on a piece of Manchester United and set about his mission to restore the club to ‘the top of the game’. It would not be a quick fix, the petrochemicals billionaire said, given the sense of decline and drift that had taken hold over the previous decade. It wasn’t a case of flicking a switch or waving a magic wand. ‘We have to walk to the right solution,’ he told the BBC, ‘not run to the wrong one.’ Ratcliffe made no apologies for setting Manchester City as the benchmark that United had to emulate: first of all, off the pitch, by replicating something of their ‘very sensible structure’ and ‘driven competitive environment’ and, ultimately, on the pitch, where he said Pep Guardiola’s team had produced ‘the best football I’ve ever seen’. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)