Ratcliffe says Ruben Amorim has three years to prove himself at Manchester United

Sir Jim Ratcliffe insists he will not take a “kneejerk” decision to sack Ruben Amorim and has indicated he will afford the head coach three years to demonstrate his capabilities at Manchester United.

Amorim has been under pressure, having struggled to turn the club around. The 40-year-old has been in charge for 11 months but is yet to win back-to-back league games and the team sit 10th.

United have picked up 37 points from his 34 league games, finished 15th last season, and were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Grimsby in August. Amorim has faced questions over his 3-4-3 formation, which is yet to pay dividends despite a summer net spend of about £170m.

Ratcliffe is regarded as a key supporter of Amorim but the head coach has admitted that if results do not improve he will face the sack.

“He has not had the best of seasons,” Ratcliffe told The Business podcast. “Ruben needs to demonstrate he is a great coach over three years. That’s where I would be. The press, sometimes I don’t understand. They want overnight success. They think it’s a light switch. You know, you flick a switch and it’s all going to be roses tomorrow. You can’t run a club like Manchester United on kneejerk reactions to some journalist who goes off on one every week.”

Ratcliffe has controlled football operations since purchasing an initial 25% of the club in December 2023 from the Glazer family, who maintain majority ownership. Asked what the response would be if the Glazers suggested Amorim needed to be dismissed, Ratcliffe said: “It’s not going to happen.”

The Glazers have been the subject of numerous protests over the years and are rarely seen at Old Trafford, leaving Ratcliffe and Ineos to run day‑to-day operations. “We’re local and they’re the other side of the pond,” Ratcliffe said. “That’s a long way away to try to manage a football club as big and as complex as Manchester United. We’re here with feet on the ground. They get a bad rap … but they are really nice people and they are really passionate about the club.”

Wide-ranging cost-cutting measures have been implemented by Ratcliffe, resulting in about 450 jobs being lost at United, Sir Alex Ferguson’s £2m‑a‑year ambassadorial role being ended and free lunches for staff being removed, leading to criticism of Ratcliffe.

“The costs were just too high,” Ratcliffe said. “There are some fantastic people at Manchester United, but there was also a level of mediocrity and it had become bloated. I got a lot of flak for the free lunches, but no one’s ever given me a free lunch.

“The biggest correlation, like it or not, between results and any external factor, is profitability. The more cash you have got, the better squad you can build. So a lot of what we have done in the first year is spend an awful lot of time putting the club on a sustainable, healthy footing.”

United last month reported record revenues of £666.5m in the financial year to June 2025 but a loss of £33m. “We’re not seeing all the benefits of the restructuring that we’ve done in this set of [financial] results and we were not in the Champions League,” Ratcliffe said.

“Those numbers will get better. Manchester United will become the most profitable football club in the world, in my view, and from that will stem, I hope, a long‑term, sustainable, high level of football.”

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