THE AUDIT is a new series from Daily Mail Sport assessing the true health of Premier League clubs in the short, medium and long term. Here, we go beneath the surface at Manchester United to review the state of play on and off the pitch at Old Trafford.
No one at Manchester United is kidding themselves it has been a positive start to the season. At least, not anymore. One win in five Premier League games and a painful Carabao Cup exit to Brighton has punctured the mood of optimism building under Michael Carrick.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Carrick argued after Ainsley Maitland-Niles’s stunning late equaliser denied United victory at Everton at the start of September. ‘There are moments we can deal with a bit better, but we’ll be fine.’
Ten days later, after United had lost the Manchester derby and Brighton became the first team in 50 years to overturn a two-goal deficit to win at Old Trafford, Carrick struck a very different tone.
‘We can’t accept that as a group,’ he admitted. ‘It feels bad at the moment because we haven’t had a great two or three weeks. We’ve got to win football matches and obviously we’ve got to do it pretty quickly.’
It has been a challenging season so far on the pitch, and United have suffered off it too. Fan unrest and protests over the club’s clampdown on ticket touting, teen star JJ Gabriel’s bombshell decision to quit and news that the cost of servicing United’s debt since the Glazer takeover in 2005 has now topped £1billion has added to the early-season gloom.
So what’s the state of play, and how healthy is the club behind the scenes?
It’s been a turbulent start to the season for Manchester United, with poor results on the pitch and bad news off it
FIRST-TEAM SQUAD: 5/10
United appeared to be in good shape after Carrick returned to the club in January as Ruben Amorim’s replacement and led the team to a third-place finish in May.
Armed with an extra £100million from Champions League qualification, United looked ready to compete with their rivals for top players this summer as they embarked on a midfield rebuild.
Elliot Anderson was widely touted as United’s No1 target. Aurelien Tchouameni and Sandro Tonali were among the other big names mentioned. In the end, Anderson went to Manchester City for £116m and Tottenham got Tonali for £100m. Tchouameni stayed at Real Madrid.
It felt like United were never really shopping at the same level. They spent £163m, less than Hull City and roughly the same as Ipswich Town.
United were beaten to West Ham’s £85m midfielder Mateus Fernandes by Spurs and pulled the plug on a £38.5m deal for Ederson of Atalanta, before signing Carlos Baleba (£70m), Andrey Santos (£50m) and Youri Tielemans (£35m) – plus back-up goalkeeper Karl Darlow as a free agent and academy signing Tynan Thompson (£8m) from Tottenham.
Baleba has yet to kick a ball for the club after making the matchday squad for the first time at Fulham in the last game before the international break. Santos was dropped after a disastrous opening-day defeat at Hull and has only made one other start, in the loss to Brighton.
United’s recruitment policy has come under fire for focusing on the midfield and ignoring the need for another striker or cover at left back for Luke Shaw. Having missed the entire pre-season with a persistent shin injury, Benjamin Sesko made just two starts before suffering a relapse, leaving Carrick without a conventional striker.
An injury to Amad Diallo has prevented Bryan Mbeumo from switching from the right flank to replace Sesko through the middle, as he did during the summer friendlies. Matheus Cunha has had to play as a false nine, and a very false one at that.
One of United’s key summer signings Andrey Santos, who cost £50m from Chelsea, was dropped after a disastrous opening-day defeat at Hull, and has only made one other start
Having missed pre-season with a persistent shin injury, Benjamin Sesko made just two starts before suffering a relapse, leaving United without a conventional striker
Shaw lasted just three games before his unbroken run of 41 league appearances came to an end, forcing Carrick to try Patrick Dorgu and Noussair Mazraoui at left back.
A reluctance not to overspend on new signings might make sense on the balance sheet, but United have looked decidedly average so far. Five points is their worst return from the opening five games of a Premier League season and they are already out of one domestic cup.
Worryingly, the fixture list has been quite kind to United, and the reality of juggling Premier League and Champions League commitments hasn’t started to bite yet.
After the international break, Tottenham visit Old Trafford before a run of three away games at Atletico Madrid, high-flying Leeds United and Como, before playing Bournemouth at home and Chelsea away to round out October.
MANAGERIAL STAFF: 5/10
Carrick has been around United long enough as a player and coach to know how this works: succeed like he did in the second half of last season, and he is the man with the red of United in his blood who can bring back the glory days.
Fail like he has at the start of this season, and he is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Mk II – the homespun hero who makes a compelling argument to land the job on a full-time basis and never quite hits the same heights again.
We’re only seven games into the new season, but even a coach with Carrick’s experience of the Old Trafford circus seems shocked at how quickly the tide has turned against him and his team.
The fans rounded on them after the Brighton defeat, and there were more boos when he substituted Kobbie Mainoo in the draw at Fulham before the international break.
Carrick must use these three weeks as a chance to reset and regroup with his coaching staff. The 45-year-old has branded early-season speculation over his future as ‘ridiculous’, but he simply cannot allow results to continue like this.
Yes, United can count themselves a little unlucky with Maitland-Niles’ equaliser for Everton, and the decision to allow Erling Haaland’s goal in the derby. But they got the breaks in their only Premier League win over Ipswich, and a fortunate deflection late on to claim a point at Fulham. It’s not as though United fans are cursing their luck.
We’re only seven games into the new season, but even a coach with Carrick’s experience of the Old Trafford circus seems shocked at how quickly the tide has turned against him
Carrick’s former team-mate Gary Neville lambasted the performance at Craven Cottage as ‘an absolute disgrace’ – specifically United’s reluctance to run, which was borne out by the stats.
There is a perception that the team’s passive nature mirrors that of the head coach, and Carrick has had to defend the lack of passion – both his own and the team’s – on several occasions.
His No2 Steve Holland and assistants Jonathan Woodgate, Jonny Evans and Travis Binnion were praised for their contributions in the second half of last season, and this backroom team that was rather hastily put together brought their individual strengths to the table.
Carrick will need their support again in the weeks ahead as he tries to overcome the early problems and inject some positivity into the club.
ACADEMY SET-UP: 6/10
The youth academy is a source of huge pride at United, so it has been particularly painful to see Gabriel turn his back on the club and ask for his registration to be ripped up.
Who knows what his reasons are. Sources close to the 15-year-old phenomenon say his family believe there are better clubs than United to give Gabriel the platform to make the most of his talent.
There have been gripes over his pathway into the first team since the summer – even though his demand to go came on the eve of a potential senior debut in the Carabao Cup against Brighton.
More cynical observers would focus on the timing, just a few weeks short of his 16th birthday when he can appoint an agent and use his Irish passport to join a foreign club. There was little surprise when it emerged that his camp have held talks with Real Madrid and Barcelona.
While losing Gabriel would be a huge blow to United, there is no shortage of talent knocking on the first-team door or coming through the pipeline.
Shea Lacey showed why Carrick gave him plenty of game time in pre-season by scoring on his full debut against Brighton
But 15-year-old wonderkid JJ Gabriel dropped a bombshell on United by asking to have his registration ripped up
Shea Lacey showed why Carrick gave him plenty of game time in pre-season by scoring on his full debut against Brighton. The 19-year-old winger was predicted to be one of the young players making an impact on the senior squad this season along with the Fletcher twins, Tyler and Jack.
Jim Thwaites and Noah Ajayi, who has just signed his first professional contract, aren’t far behind. Thompson is another to watch out for after United agreed a deal with Tottenham worth up to £8m to sign the 18-year-old winger in the summer.
The club are continuing to recruit at academy level as they invest in the future. Midfielder Karim Cassim has joined after leaving Manchester City, having helped them to beat United in the FA Youth Cup final last season. David Eze, another promising City midfielder, and Liverpool winger Isaac Konde are expected to follow.
BOARDROOM/OWNERS: 2/10
It hasn’t taken long for festering anger with United’s owners to erupt into open hostility early in the new season.
Fans have harboured an intense dislike of the Glazer family for some time. The club’s full-year results last week revealed that the cost of financing United’s debt has now topped the £1bn mark for the first time since the Americans’ leveraged takeover in 2005.
Increasingly, though, their fury is being directed towards Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos who have assumed day-to-day running of the club since the billionaire’s minority takeover nearly three years ago.
They are unhappy at Ratcliffe’s treatment of season-ticket holders, and that has reached a new low in the wake of a controversial crackdown on ticket touting that they claim has targeted innocent supporters.
There was a demonstration organised by protest group The 1958 before the Manchester derby when The Red Army also left the Stretford End empty of all flags and banners except one that declared: ‘The way you treat us is a disgrace.’
Ratcliffe hasn’t helped by doubling down on his criticism of the UK’s immigration system, prompting the Manchester United Muslim Supporters Club to issue a vote of no confidence in the owners.
United fans protested about the club’s owners and skyrocketing season ticket prices earlier this month
There was a demonstration organised by protest group The 1958 before the Manchester derby when The Red Army also left the Stretford End empty of all flags and banners except this one
FINANCES: 4/10
Ratcliffe issued a stark warning last year that United could have gone bust by Christmas were it not for the cost-cutting and redundancies carried out by Ineos, and the latest financial results demonstrated that United’s problems won’t be solved overnight.
The club’s total debt still stands at £1.15bn, made up of £577.6m from the Glazer takeover in 2005, £200m owing on the club’s revolving credit facility and outstanding transfer fees of £375m.
Worse still, the £69.6m paid in interest – an increase of £48.4m (228.3 per cent) from the previous year – pushed the cost of financing that debt over the last 21 years past the £1bn mark.
Despite record revenues of £677.6m and turning an £18.4m operating loss into a £22.6m profit over the last year, United still reported an overall net loss of £43m.
Being back in the Champions League will help, but it’s a measure of the club’s desperation to claw back money wherever possible that miniature cubes of the Old Trafford pitch that was ripped up over the summer are on sale for £125.
United will point to the balance sheet as a reason why they couldn’t overspend on new signings in the summer. They have also been trying to drive down the wage bill by offloading big earners like Casemiro and Jadon Sancho, and offering more incentivised contracts.
But they couldn’t find a taker for Marcus Rashford, largely because of his £325,000-a-week salary, and now face tricky negotiations with captain Bruno Fernandes who knows he can earn substantially more elsewhere.
Saving money on transfer fees and wages is one thing. But if it means that you can’t compete for the top targets and there is a danger your best players leave, it’s a false economy.
STADIUM: 5/10
Despite the financial worries, United remain committed to building a new £2bn stadium to replace Old Trafford funded by private investment.
The club have paid £63.5m to purchase a 25-acre triangle of land located 350 metres away from Old Trafford, and will shortly begin a consultation process with fans over the design of the new 100,000-seater venue. It’s hoped that it can be completed in time to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup final.
In the meantime, United continue to patch up Old Trafford. The pitch has been re-laid for the first time in 14 years, including new foundations and drainage system. However, there is only so much that can be done to fix the roof which sprung another leak when the first home game of the season against Ipswich was hit by a deluge of rain.
The club also received a number of complaints over the standards in hospitality suites after making changes over the summer, while local residents have challenged plans to open a new 1,300-capacity fan zone behind the Stretford End next month.
For all its faults, however, Old Trafford is still one of the most iconic venues in British sport. It holds a special place in the hearts of many supporters who are waiting to find out what the new stadium will look like and how much importance will be placed on rank-and-file fans.
