The damning stat that exposes Man Utd’s worst mistake of the INEOS era
INEOS ARE YOU MAD!!!!!
If you’re a particular kind of terminally online football fan, you probably know the screencap in question.
One of those that perennially does the rounds from annoying blue-tick accounts – posted in ever-grainier resolutions, like ‘he’s 28 until he’s 29’ back in the day – to plug a gap and get some easy numbers. Chapeau, Elon Musk, for rewarding such engagement-bait with actual money. Some platform you’ve built there.
If your brain is mercifully free of such brainrot, here’s what you’re missing out on. The replies to Fabrizio Romano’s ‘Here We Go’ announcement are also there for prosperity.
‘I better not wake up soon and see this was all a dream’, ‘My club finally acting like the biggest club it is’ and ‘We’re so big time now’ some of the aged-like-milk responses to the news of Manchester United bagging Manuel Ugarte from PSG back in 2024 – a statement signing, supposedly, and one of the first since Jim Ratcliffe got involved.
But it’s ‘INEOS ARE YOU MAD!!!!!’ that really stands the test of time. There’s a quietly ironic, literal reading you can make in the wake of the Uruguay international’s truly dismal two seasons at Old Trafford.
Fifty million Great British Pounds sterling. For Manuel Ugarte. No, really, INEOS – Are you actually mad?
Going back and viewing the signing from the context of the time, it’s easy to understand the excitement. It was long before Casemiro’s redemption arc, off the back of his dismal second season (“leave the football before the football leaves you”) – a situation that left United desperately crying out for fresh legs in midfield.
A classic Uruguayan hatchet man, a decade younger than Casemiro, who was rated as one of Europe’s most promising young midfielders back at Sporting. Ugarte ticked a lot of boxes. Never mind that PSG were happy to get shot after just a year.
Looking back, in light of how Ugarte has fared in Manchester and some of the otherworldly football PSG have played under Luis Enrique, it’s almost unthinkable they ever overlapped. Like casting Arnold Schwarzenegger in an Andrei Tarkovsky picture.
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Needless to say, Ugarte has been nothing short of a disaster. It’s surely no coincidence that Manchester United ended with their lowest placing and points tally of the Premier League era in his debut campaign, when they leaned on him heavily.
Ugarte’s first start – a 3-0 home defeat to Tottenham – set the tone for what was to come. He started 22 Premier League matches in 2024/25. United won six of them, drew four and lost 12. That averages out at exactly one point per game – marginally better than how Tottenham are faring this season.
Manchester United’s push for Champions League football this season has coincided with Casemiro’s resurgence and Ugarte being pushed back to the periphery. He’s started just eight Premier League games this season; United have won one of them. Stretch that out to all competitions and it’s one in 10. Ugarte also started in their cup defeats to Grimsby and Brighton. Of course he did.
You look at how Manchester United struggled in the first half against Leeds United – whose only prior away win this season was at Molineux, and last league win at Old Trafford was in 1981 – and it’s clear this is no statistical quirk. It’s not like Gareth Bale failing to win his first 24 Premier League matches. Correlation and causation intertwine closely here. It was almost painful to see him dogwalked by Ao Tanaka, a player Leeds bought for less than a tenth of Ugarte’s fee.
Going back over the past 12 months, he’s won just one of his last 14 Premier League starts.
Ugarte remains contracted until 2029 and United’s hope of recouping even a fraction of his fee dwindles with every subsequent appearance. His signing must be down there with the very worst the Glazers ever made. INEOS – are you mad?
