It was clearly wishful thinking that the Manchester United takeover process could be all done and dusted by the summer.
Progress seems to have slowed to a crawl as the Glazer family mull over whether it should be Sheikh Jassim and Qatar or Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS handed the keys to Old Trafford.
It has certainly left manager Erik ten Hag in limbo as he formulates his transfer plans to build on a pretty successful first season in charge.
But just as British billionaire Ratcliffe appeared to have stolen a march by promising to keep the unpopular Glazers involved, there has been criticism of the way he runs another club he owns.
Ratcliffe, 70, has run the French club Nice since August 2019 and it’s fair to say it hasn’t been the smoothest of journeys.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS company are in the race to buy out Manchester United
Ratcliffe is up against Qatari Sheikh Jassim, who wants a complete buy-out of the Glazers
United’s current owners Avram (left) and Joel Glazer are considering sale options
And in comments that may well alarm United fans, close observer of Ligue 1 Emmanuel Petit and Nice’s captain Dante have both come out and criticised the running of the club this week.
Former Arsenal and Chelsea star Petit was scathing in his assessment of the French Riviera outfit.
‘Since INEOS arrived in Nice, I don’t know who makes decisions,’ he told Foot01.
‘Where they want to go, what they want to do with Nice, especially since with MUFC 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 80 billion, is not even capable of managing a club like Nice and having a clear and defined strategy.’
Petit went on to ask why a new permanent manager hadn’t yet been appointed after Lucien Favre was fired in January and replaced by caretaker Didier Digard.
He added: ‘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!’
You’d expect a pundit to be critical but even more damning were the comments about transfer policy from Nice’s veteran Brazilian captain Dante.
Nice captain Dante has publicly criticised the hierarchy at Nice as well as recruitment
Nice have struggled under the Brit’s ownership this season and are sitting ninth in Ligue 1
‘To maintain a project, maybe you need to speak less about objectives and work in silence to create an environment of competitors. Because the expectation is even bigger, and then after, people are frustrated,’ he told L’Equipe.
‘Do you remember how many players came in at the end of the transfer window last summer? Six left, six arrived.
‘It’s difficult in these conditions. Simply, we mustn’t make the same errors. If someone wants my opinion, the earlier we organise ourselves, the better it will be.
‘When the coach [Favre] arrived, we said in two years that we would always be in the Champions League. It doesn’t work like that. Ligue 1 is very difficult.
‘We lost 10 players, 10 arrived. The teams in the semi-finals of big competitions play together for three, four years. We changed everything last summer.
‘There is a lack of coherence somewhere. I am sorry to say that.’
You may well join the dots and realise Ratcliffe hasn’t necessarily been fully focused on Nice given the demands of the United takeover operation.
But this tardy and scattergun recruitment plus a regular chopping and changing of mangers – there have been five in less than four years of Ratcliffe ownership – certainly doesn’t bode well for United.
The drawn-out takeover process at Old Trafford will have an impact on United’s summer
Erik ten Hag’s summer spending plans could be on hold until the takeover is completed
Nice, who are likely to finish either eighth or ninth in Ligue 1 and miss out on European football next season, are hardly a behemoth on the European or global football stage.
United very much are and if INEOS cannot get it right at Nice, there will be plenty rightly wondering what on earth lies in store if they take over at Old Trafford.
Ratcliffe pictured in the stands at the Allianz Riviera as Nice lost to Basel in the UEFA Europa Conference League quarter-finals
The Reds have taken big strides in moving away from the kind of ill-thought-out recruitment that has hampered them in recent years.
Ten Hag’s first summer buys have been, by and large, very positive ones – certainly when it comes to Casemiro, Lisandro Martinez and Christian Eriksen.
Given the clear progress made in Ten Hag’s first season, another couple of astute signings this summer could turn them into title contenders but the takeover is creating uncertainty.
The ironic thing is that when Ratcliffe bought Nice, they were considered the model of a well-run club and, with his investment, looked primed to challenge Paris Saint-Germain.
They were regulars in the Ligue 1 top four under Claude Puel and during Favre’s first spell, becoming adept at picking out talents from Europe’s less fashionable leagues and polishing them up into saleable assets.
In the Covid-shortened 2019-20 campaign, Nice finished a respectable fifth under Patrick Vieira. But a poor start to the following season saw Vieira sacked and his assistant, Adrian Ursea, led them to ninth.
In came Christophe Galtier, who had just won the title with Lille, but Nice could only finish in fifth, making the Europa Conference League.
They were also beaten by Nantes in the French Cup final, denying the first silverware of the INEOS era.
Things became even more chaotic last summer, with Galtier falling out with director of football Julien Fournier just as Ratcliffe brought in Sir Dave Brailsford, the former Team GB cycling coach and INEOS director of sport, to audit the club.
Free agent Ross Barkley was one of Nice’s signing late in the transfer window last summer
Wales midfielder Aaron Ramsey was another brought in after he struggled at Juventus
That further delayed things with the transfer window open and ended in the departures of Fournier and even CEO Bob Ratcliffe, who is Jim’s brother.
With Galtier finding his own escape route – the PSG job – Nice had lost their coach, director of football and CEO in quick succession.
Galtier made no secret of his dislike for Nice’s recruitment, expressing reservations about how committed INEOS actually were.
Kasper Schmeichel is reportedly annoying his team-mates by training when he likes
By the time Brailsford had done sweeping up, Nice had barely started their summer spending, with Iain Moody, the former Crystal Palace sporting director, brought in to help recruitment.
The result was essentially a load of Premier League cast-offs, including Aaron Ramsey, Kasper Schmeichel and Ross Barkley. Plus Nicolas Pepe on loan from Arsenal and Mads Bech Sorensen from Brentford.
Wales midfielder Ramsey, 32, lost his way at Juventus but appears to have done enough to earn a contract extension at Nice despite not pulling up any trees.
Ramsey has actually spoken warmly of Ratcliffe, saying: ‘The owner is very passionate and very invested in Nice. It’s a great project to be a part of. It just feels like a family-oriented club.’
Barkley, who was a free agent after leaving Chelsea, has barely made a start in recent weeks and was left out of Nice’s Europa Conference League squad for the knockout rounds.
36-year-old Danish goalkeeper Schmeichel, signed last August after leaving Leicester, is reportedly causing friction by training when it suits him and may move on again.
Sorensen didn’t make a single appearance for Nice and Pepe has scored eight times but his season cannot be described as anything more than ‘average.’
So last summer’s recruitment was patchy to put it nicely. As Dante openly admitted, the need to integrate these new signings came at the cost of any team cohesion.
Nice’s head coach Didier Digard (right) and midfielder Khephren Thuram after the Basel loss
With everything very disjointed on and off the pitch, Favre was given the boot following a humiliating defeat to third division Le Puy in the French Cup in January.
Although Digard stabilised things, there was to be no salvation in the Europa Conference League, where Basel kicked them out in the quarter-finals.
The mid-table finish is a clear regression but Nice certainly had it coming after waiting so long to sort things out behind the scenes last summer and then shopping in the bargain basement.
One positive came with the appointment of Florent Ghisolfi as sporting director following his good work with Lens, who are on course to finish second behind PSG this season.
Arsenal loanee Nicolas Pepe misses a chance during Nice’s cup loss to third division Le Puy
It is hoped his arrival will return Nice to their smart policy of identifying talent in less obvious places and making a profit later on, leading to better business this summer.
By then, INEOS may have a far bigger jewel in their crown. Ratcliffe has generally taken a ‘hands-off’ approach at Nice, only occasionally coming to games.
But his decisions with regards the club’s hierarchy in recent seasons has meant their ambition to properly take on the Qatari wealth at PSG hasn’t yet been realised. Instead, they have drifted backwards.
Manchester United certainly don’t need that.
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
