Another day almost done and one where Manchester United’s managerial and backroom teams are no closer to knowing if and when the club will be taken over, and whether it will be Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Sheikh Jassim or the Glazer family that will be in charge come the start of the 2023/24 season.
It has to be an incredibly frustrating time for all concerned, and whilst the Glazer’s can’t be ridiculed for taking their time to decide what they feel is the best deal, if one isn’t concluded soon, it will impact on the club across the summer and into next season.
That’s because Erik ten Hag has to know how much money he will have to spend in the transfer market in order to be able to approach targets accordingly.
There’s simply no use courting certain players if a few weeks down the line, the current owners decide to keep the status quo as it is now.
Furthermore, players, agents and clubs will already be positioning themselves to get deals done as quickly as possible after the transfer window opens in order to give players the best chance of being able to bed down sufficiently during pre-season.
One former Arsenal player, Emmanuel Petit, has sounded a huge warning to anyone wishing to see Sir Jim Ratcliffe at the helm, however.
“Since INEOS arrived in Nice, I don’t know who makes the decisions,” he said to Foot01 (h/t TeamTalk).
“I don’t know where they want to go. I don’t know what they want to do with this club, especially since with Manchester United behind us. We don’t know if they’re going to pull out overnight.
“That’s what puzzles me, actually. A group like INEOS, which manages 17,000 people around the world and has a turnover of 80bn, is not even capable of managing a club like Nice at the moment and having a clear and defined strategy.
“When you take the best sporting director, Ghisolfi at Lens, who made miracles on the transfer market with three francs and six pennies.
“You see today that he is in total disagreement with what we are trying to impose on him concerning the extension of certain players like [Aaron] Ramsey.
“Who is making the decisions? Mr. Ratcliffe, Mr. Blanc, Mr. Rivère, whose silence has been deafening for the past few weeks regarding the affairs. He told us in February: You’ll see, we’ll give you the name of the future coach in February.
“It’s the end of May and we still don’t know what’s going to happen at Nice. The market coming up quickly. The direction that INEOS and OGC Nice want to take, I have no idea!”
With less than a fortnight left of the current Premier League season and just over two weeks to the FA Cup final against Man City, the Glazer family would be well advised to finally state their intentions.