The true extent of the backroom chaos at Manchester United has been revealed after Sir Jim Ratcliffe claims the club would have gone bust by Christmas.
The Red Devils co-owner has undergone a regime of savage cuts and job losses at Old Trafford with around £300 million lost by the Premier League club in the last four years. Among these include the removal of free lunches with 250 staff let go in 2024. Up to 200 redundancies are also expected this year.
The brutal penny pinching comes as United unveiled plans to leave Old Trafford and move to a new 100,000-seater stadium. The regeneration project has been reported to cost around £2bn. Sir Jim also took aim at the current playing squad and the state of the club during a series of bombshell interviews, including with BBC Sport. During which he revealed if he had not made the required cuts the football club could have “run out of cash” by December – despite his £232m cash injection.
He added: “We are in the process of change and it’s an uncomfortable period and disruptive and I do feel sympathy with the fans. The simple answer is the club runs out of money at Christmas if we don’t do those things. The club had got bloated so we reduced that and will finish it with a lean and efficient organisation. That’s how we will address the costs. The player decisions will all be focused on how we are going to improve performance. That’s all.”
However, according to research by AskGamblers, their study found that United are, in fact, still currently the second least efficient Premier League club, with Jim Ratcliffe overseeing a club which “employs 3,608 more people than the average top-flight club”.
United’s efficiency was found to be “42.7% worse” than the league average, with only newly-promoted Ipswich Town being less efficient than the Red Devils. Meanwhile Bournemouth have been found to be the most efficient Premier League club, with the Cherries efficiency exceeding the league average by a staggering 158.7%.
Premier League efficiency rankings:
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Bournemouth
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Wolves
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Newcastle Utd
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Tottenham
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Brighton & Hove Albion
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Brentford
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West Ham
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Manchester City
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Fulham
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Nottingham Forest
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Aston Villa
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Crystal Palace
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Leicester City
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Everton
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Southampton
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Liverpool
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Arsenal
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Chelsea
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Manchester United
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Ipswich Town.
AskGamblers analysed the most and least efficient Premier League clubs by dividing their revenue as listed by Capology, by the average number of employed staff, based on figures from RocketReach and Linkedin. The data was gathered on Friday February 28, 2025. United are down in 14th place on 34 points with 10 games of the Premier League season left.