“Either you change FOUR of them or considered sacked”: Sir Jim Ratchliffe finally respond to Man United’s poor form with four demands from Erik ten Hag
New Manchester United chief executive Omar Berrada says it is impossible to put a timeframe on the club’s return to challenge for major trophies again.
United have not won the Premier League or come close to challenging for the title since Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down in 2013 with the club’s last championship triumph. Since then, United have won the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League, but fallen well short of competing for the Premier League and Champions League.
Erik ten Hag is United’s fifth permanent manager of the post-Ferguson era and is no nearer to turning them into title contenders, following Sunday’s humiliating 3-0 defeat at home to arch rivals Liverpool. Berrada, who defected from United’s local rivals Manchester City in July, was asked how long it will take to re-establish the club as a major force again, but was reluctant to put a timescale on it.
“I think anybody who has worked in football for a long time could tell you that it’s almost impossible to put a timescale to answer that question,” said Berrada.
“What I can say is it has been demonstrated when you look at the teams who have been successful consistently for many years it’s because they have the right coach, they have signed the right players, they have the right structure around the coach and the players and you need to take good decisions consistently for many years to get into a position where you are a financially sustainable club that is competing to win every single competition – which is where we want to be.
“We don’t want to just win one Premier League and then be satisfied. We want to create a team that is capable of competing for the Champions League, for the Premier League and for the domestic cups on a consistent basis.
“So to build that, we need to be doing more of what we have done in this window. We have addressed priority positions that were identified very early on and we were able to do it in a financially sustainable way.
“We were quite disciplined about the valuations we were giving to the players who were going to come in. We stuck to those valuations. I think Dan [Ashworth, United’s sporting director] and the team did a fantastic job in the negotiations process.
“The reason I mention that is if you make a mistake and if you overspend or get a player who can cost you too much, it can set you back, which is why you need to be able to take those decisions and make the right ones consistently over time to be in a position to win consistently. There will be some mistakes that we made, it’s normal there are certain factors we can’t control.”
