The Red Devils have lagged behind their local rivals in almost every aspect but Sir Jim Ratcliffe has a plan to make up the ground
It was during the final few weeks of David Moyes' nightmare season in charge of Manchester United when he declared that his side needed to "aspire" to be on the same level as Manchester City. Moyes had a habit of misjudging the public mood while he was manager and this was yet another misstep, pouring salt into United fans' wounds just after a crushing 3-0 defeat at home to City in March 2014.
It was the first season of the post Sir Alex Ferguson era and, while there were obvious concerns about City's rise, fuelled by the Abu Dhabi takeover six years earlier, United still very much felt like they were the premier team in Manchester and the country. At the time they had 20 league titles to City's three. They did not need to aspire to be like City, they just needed to be like the team they were 12 months previously under Ferguson, when they had romped to the title with four games to spare.
But with the benefit of hindsight, Moyes looks like he was on to something, and perhaps should not have been ridiculed as he was speaking the truth. Back then City were only outclassing United on the pitch, but they are now streets ahead of their local rivals as a football team and as an institution.
As a dishevelled and depleted United prepare to visit City on Sunday, there can be no question that they continue to aspire to be more like their neighbours. But now that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS team have taken control of United's football operation, there is genuine belief that they can overhaul their rivals in the next few years by taking the right steps off the pitch…
Getty Leaders in trophies and finance
Almost a decade on from Moyes' blunt declaration, the title count reads United 20, City 9. The Cityzens have also won their first Champions League and are the favourites to win Europe's holy grail again this season. United, meanwhile, were booted out of the group stage and face an uphill battle to get into next year's competition.
City are also way ahead of United in financial terms, finishing above them in the Deloitte Money League, which ranks European clubs according to revenues. And last week new minority shareholder Ratcliffe channeled Moyes when he told a room of journalists at INEOS' headquarters that the Red Devils could learn a lot of things from their hated rivals.
“If you look at a club like Manchester City, you see they’ve got a very sensible structure," he said. "They’ve got a really driven competitive environment but there’s a bit of warmth to it. There are two clubs not very far from us who have been successful and have got some of those things right, and United don’t.”
Ratcliffe mentioned City eight times during an hour-long conversation with the assembled media and at one point was picked up on it. "Well, they are one of the best teams on the planet," was his response.
"We have a lot to learn from our noisy neighbour and the other neighbour [Liverpool]. They are the enemy at the end of the day. There is nothing I would like better than to knock both of them off their perch."
AdvertisementGetty Head-hunting Berrada
In looking across town in search of inspiration to make United a force to be reckoned with, Ratcliffe is doing exactly what City did when they were taken over by the Abu Dhabi United group in 2008, spearheaded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. According to , Brian Marwood, the managing director of City Football Group, used to deliberately drive past Old Trafford on his way to work to remind himself "what excellence looked like".
Chelsea also looked to United when they were taken over by Roman Abramovich in 2003, instantly poaching the Red Devils' chief executive Peter Kenyon. Ratcliffe did not take long to make a similar move and, less than a month after agreeing to purchase his 27.7 percent stake in the club, he convinced Omar Berrada to leave City and become United's new CEO.
Berrada first joined City in 2011 as head of international business development and climbed his way up the ladder all the way to becoming chief football operations officer for CFG. He was responsible for contracts for new players and his first major deal was signing Aymeric Laporte in 2018. Berrada has since been credited with helping City sign Erling Haaland and Jack Grealish.
Getty ImagesThe 'dumb money' no more
Berrada also ensured that City, with a few exceptions, became renowned for doing expert business in the transfer market, rarely overpaying for players. In his own words, he helped the club "take the emotion out of decisions".
His level-headedness must have appealed to Ratcliffe, who has long criticised United's transfers, even before he declared his interest in buying a stake in the club. He called United's recruitment "shockingly poor" in a 2019 interview with and said the £50m ($63m) signing of Fred in 2018 illustrated that the club were "the dumb money" before adding: "[Ineos] never wants to be the dumb money in town, never, never."
And after INEOS officially completed their deal, he told the that making expensive marquee signings would not be on the agenda. "We need to walk to the right solutions not run to the wrong solutions," he said. "Spending money lavishly in the summer is not the solution, much more complicated than that."
Woodward and specialising in failure
And key to getting the right players for the right price is hiring a top sporting director, something United have never had. For so many years, Ferguson was effectively the sporting director, choosing the players he wanted himself – and often doing the negotiating himself, too.
The Scot never wanted anyone to tell him who to sign and would never have countenanced United hiring a sporting director. And when Ferguson eventually retired in 2013, many at the club thought that, as the previous model had worked so well, there was little point breaking something that didn't need fixing.
Chief executive Ed Woodward, from a background in accounting and banking, took on lots of responsibility for transfer dealings and frequently looked out of his depth. Woodward became such a derided figure that in 2019 a group of fans pitched in to pay for a plane to fly over Turf Moor during United's match with Burnley bearing the message: 'Ed Woodward – Specialist in Failure'
The first summer after Ferguson's departure underlined the need for proper expertise in the transfer market as United signed just one player for new manager Moyes, buying his old Everton midfielder Marouane Fellaini on transfer deadline day for £4m ($5m) more than if they had signed him a month earlier. Their bungling attempt to sign Ander Herrera from Athletic Club on the same day was also an embarrassing indictment of their transfer dealings.
And yet, it was not until 2021 that United finally appointed a sporting director. Despite a thorough recruitment drive that took the best part of two years, they made an internal appointment, promoting John Murtough, who had never held a similar position before.