Sir Jim Ratcliffe is winning the Manchester United PR battle – can he get them winning on the pitch again?

Now that the billionaire tycoon has managed to prise some of Manchester United away from the loathed Glazer family, he’s looking to make his mark on the club – but he could find himself learning the harsh, and costly, lesson that business brilliance does not guarantee sporting success, writes Chris Blackhurst

Sir Jim Ratcliffe at Old Trafford (PA Wire)

The three watchwords of Sir Jim Ratcliffe at his Ineos group are “grit, rigour and humour”.

Apply those, so his thinking goes, and success will surely come. That may be true of a chemical manufacturer but does it translate to the biggest football club in the world, in the most competitive league in the world?

All it’s possible to say with any certainty is that we shall see.

If Manchester United can win or at least challenge consistently for the Premier League or the Uefa Champions League – how a top team is judged today – then Ratcliffe will be showered with praise. If the team does that with flair, he will acquire messiah status as the person who lifted the club out of its torpor, rescued the Red Devils from relative mediocrity and revived the United legend.

Fail, and Ratcliffe will join the long list of those who have discovered to their cost that business brilliance does not guarantee sporting success. Worse, he will be bracketed with the Glazer family, loathed by the United fans, who have sold him 27 per cent of their shareholding and granted Ratcliffe seemingly carte blanche in footballing matters.

The Glazers have now detached themselves – nothing new there as they have been backseat drivers, absentee landlords, call them what you will. United supporters have done just that, frequently in the most offensive terms, for 19 years.

In that sense, little has changed. The Glazers remain firmly in control of the club, they will oversee the commercial side; Ratcliffe’s task, driven by his self-belief, a lifelong love for United and a quest for a career-ending PR high and the cementing of a legacy, is to transform the team.

Nothing else will suffice. Ratcliffe speaks boldly of restoring pride and the feelgood factor. His vision is of a brilliant squad playing inside a refurbished Old Trafford or better still, a sparkling brand-new United stadium, paid for in part with public money and intended for national use, a northern equivalent of Wembley. The latter sounds good and immediately enthuses supporters who have fumed as Old Trafford’s roof leaks and their arch-rivals have pulled ahead in terms of building breathtaking grounds and offering superb viewing facilities.

Is it feasible? Why should taxpayers’ cash be used to fund the brainchild of Ratcliffe, a tax exile who lives in Monaco?

Prestigious as they are, why should the northern Wembley be United’s home and not that of another major northern club? Why should it be built in Manchester and not Liverpool, Sheffield or Leeds? Surely, they would be miffed if, yet again, government finance was pumped into Manchester.

Andy Burnham may be hailed as the “king of the north” but not in those other cities where he’s regarded as a publicity-seeking, self-serving figure. Ratcliffe will be to football what Burnham is to mayoralty.

Ratcliffe is firing from the hip but, in truth, he has no choice. Having finally prised some of the Glazers’ fingers off the United steering wheel, he is required to big up a good game.

Right now, United’s followers are revelling in something unfamiliar: they have hope. How long the honeymoon lasts remains to be seen

It’s expected, although where the Glazers and their disdain for communications is concerned, neither is it difficult. In terms of speaking to the press, and to the supporters, they’re not exactly a hard act to follow.

They were notable for saying precisely nothing. That, and their non-attendance at matches, riled the United fans. The feeling was that they didn’t care; all Ratcliffe has to do, at first anyway, is show that he cares.

Already, he’s got the media and United followers hanging on his every word. Applying the management textbook, he first intends to get the organisational structure right. To that end, his recruitment of Omar Berrada as CEO from Manchester City and Dan Ashworth as sporting director from Newcastle is spot on. Their hiring also displays ambition and resolution, both of which have been missing from United for a long time.

The jury is less sure about another appointment, that of Sir Dave Brailsford, to a currently unspecified senior role. Once responsible for repeated cycling glory with the national squad and Team Sky, Brailsford’s lustre was tarnished amid controversy over murky allegations of using performance-enhancing drugs. The claims were not proven and though he denies them, the stain has stuck.

Alongside that, Brailsford is not a football person. His sport is one that relies on marginal gains, that turns athletes into machines, into extensions of the cycles they ride. Producing a team that can win the Tour de France could not be more different than attempting to gel and hone players in a game that relies on endeavour, instinct, ferocious pace, natural skill, moments of genius, and yes, madness, and sometimes, not a little help from inconsistent refereeing.

Dave Brailsford (left) with Ratcliffe in the stands at Old Trafford – Brailsford has been brought in for a currently unspecified senior role (PA)

The Ratcliffe method, though, is to assume that lessons from business school can overcome anything, that those three watchwords will prevail. Oh, if it were so simple. If it were, football would be awash with those who had enjoyed fantastic careers elsewhere and applied that experience and knowhow to achieve the same again.

It isn’t and that should be a warning to Ratcliffe and his groupies. He’s winning the PR battle alright but it’s winning on the pitch that counts and how ultimately he will be judged.

Tests galore lie ahead. They start with Mason Greenwood, a star player, a goalscorer, acquitted of attempted rape and assault charges, now playing in Spain but still on United’s books. Does he get the call to return or is he banished from United forever?

In Ratcliffe’s previous orbit, this would count as an HR matter for his private Ineos group. This, however, is United, permanently in the public gaze and, effectively community property.

Until now, Ratcliffe has led a relatively sheltered existence. He grew Ineos more or less under the radar, rising to become Britain’s richest man but little-known publicly. That changed to an extent with his entry into major sports, funding and running the UK America’s Cup entry, sponsoring Mercedes in F1, buying Lausanne and Nice in Swiss and French football, and the Sky pro-cycling team. Then there’s his creation of a rival to the Land Rover Defender.

Outside Ineos, his record has been patchy. There is nothing to suggest he will take United by the scruff of the neck and drive it back to the top. Look at the America’s Cup. He had no background in competitive ocean sailing; indeed, he supplanted those who had. No matter. He applied his business techniques, presumably along with the same three crucial words, and got nowhere.

It’s also not clear how the arrangement with the Glazers will operate. If Ratcliffe and his colleagues want to buy a player for £100m, logic dictates that £63m of that is Glazer money. Will they approve or disapprove, and what then?

Another early discussion must concern the manager. Ratcliffe is speaking about defining United’s style of play. That surely implies he is not happy with the current system under Erik ten Hag, the manager. United fans could easily face the prospect of a rudderless team as Ratcliffe secures a new manager. This, in a ferociously tight market.

That, though, is for the future. Right now, United’s followers are revelling in something unfamiliar: they have hope. How long the honeymoon lasts remains to be seen.

Chris Blackhurst is the author of ‘The World’s Biggest Cash Machine – Manchester United, the Glazers, and the Struggle for Football’s Soul’ (Macmillan)