Manchester United ‘rebuilt’ by ‘mastermind’ Ratcliffe as ‘minuscule’ Arsenal transfers slammed

Manchester United are back. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has ‘masterminded’ a big spend, ‘rebuilt’ everything and even won the Alejandro Garnacho transfer situation.

Ask a simple question
‘Man Utd have gone from ‘bust by Christmas’ warning to £200m splurge topped by Sesko – how has Ratcliffe masterminded it?’ – The Sun website.

Grossly exaggerating their financial problems to justify mass redundancies and more questionable decisions before spending the sort of money they do every single summer on Newcastle targets – Mediawatch.

Triggering a release clause, spending seven weeks negotiating before paying the initial asking price and paying loads for a entirely unproven striker? Magnus Magnusson is on the phone.

Three is the magic number
The ‘masterminded’ in that headline really does stick in the craw but it should be pointed out that Katherine Walsh neither uses that term nor anything resembling it in her PSR transfer explainer.

But these paragraphs are chucked out there for all to see:

‘After it’s all confirmed, United’s new look front three can boast a staggering 48 league goals between them last season.

‘Of course, it’s not always sensible to compare and time will tell, but Jurgen Klopp’s prolific front line of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mo Salah netted 46 during their title-winning 2020 campaign.’

Can’t see any issues in simply expecting the second and third biggest non-penalty xG overperformers across Europe’s top five leagues in 2024/25 to simultaneously repeat that feat with an entirely new coach, teammates and system, while another new signing also provides the exact same level of output despite having never played outside of Austria and Germany.

Remember when Joshua Zirkzee scored 11 goals in his last Bologna season, then followed that up by definitely scoring more than three goals in his debut Manchester United campaign?

And that Liverpool comparison is just mad enough to not commit any more time to.

Mark as build
And then there’s this headline from the MailOnline:

‘Inside story of the summer that rebuilt Manchester United: How a players’ charter, F1 data guru, Ruben Amorim’s rulebook, training ground revamp and supercharged transfer operation turned them from ‘toxic’ to a rising force’

Have we missed something? Manchester United have backed a new manager by spending a shedload of money in response to massive underperformance. Are we really pretending going ‘unbeaten in pre-season’ (against promoted Leeds and teams which finished 9th, 13th and 14th in the Premier League last season), appointing more INEOS people and letting players go on their phones at the dinner table a bit more either a) constitutes a ‘rebuild or b) necessitates an ‘inside story of the summer that rebuilt Manchester United’?.

It might indeed go well but we should probably wait until the actual season to start first.

Chicken dinner
‘Manchester United are the biggest winners in Marcus Rashford deal after Barcelona changed their mind’ – Manchester Evening News, July 21.

‘Manchester United will be the biggest winners from Alejandro Garnacho transfer exit’ – Manchester Evening News, August 8.

Reckon Manchester United might well be the biggest winners from Jadon Sancho’s departure soon.

The 800-word opinion piece on Manchester United being the biggest winners from Antony and Tyrell Malacia leaving on loan with the club covering half of their wages could be a tougher sell but let’s at least hear them out when the time comes.

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To the Viktor
‘Arsenal new-boy Viktor Gyokeres given minuscule chance of winning Premier League Golden Boot by supercomputer’ is a lovely Sun website twist on the usual Premier League table prediction nonsense.

It starts with a line about how ‘VIKTOR GYOKERES may be the third favourite to win the Golden Boot this season’ before painstakingly explaining how some random online casino’s ‘number-crunching machine’ actually has him down as, well, the third favourite to win the Golden Boot.

Is a 4.9% chance of something happening really ‘minuscule’? It’s higher than everyone bar Erling Haaland and Mo Salah, who have shared the Golden Boot across the last four seasons.

A load of old Arse
That is actually a nice lead-in to this piece by Daniel Cutts from the same outlet:

‘Arsenal have spent over £200million on Gyokeres and Co but still look like one-trick ponies – the pressure is on Arteta’

Seems a bit strange to point out that Arsenal have spent over £200m (and they haven’t unless you factor in obviously untriggered add-ons) without once mentioning how those signings have been sparingly used in pre-season.

The only new player to have featured for more than half of their four pre-season fixtures in terms of minutes is Martin Zubimendi, and at 189 minutes he is barely past the threshold.

Of course they ‘still look like one-trick ponies’. You are watching basically the same squad as last season – and in pre-season friendlies.

‘Their summer business seems to have been more reactive to the injury issues than proactive to what they might need to go that one step further and win the league,’ Cutts writes, before describing the addition of ‘much-needed’ striker Gyokeres in the next paragraph, even with his ‘minuscule’ Golden Boot chances.

A few lines later, the lack of ‘X-factor’ in a ‘very methodical’ team was ‘partly the reason Madueke was purchased in the first place’.

Those sound like ‘proactive’ deals for what Arsenal ‘might need to go that one step further and win the league’. And they have played a combined 89 minutes of a possible 360 in pre-season, starting one game. Why have they not transformed the attack yet?

‘You should never take away too much before the season starts, but it was clear Arteta plans to play a very similar way to years gone by.’

Might be because they’ve finished runners-up three seasons in a row so are pretty close but in need of a few tweaks.

‘And that has proven they aren’t quite good enough to win the Premier League, what makes them think this year is different?’

Probably the near-£200m spent on players including a new centre-forward and different sort of wide attacker to those they already have.

Boo
‘HARRY KANE came back to haunt Tottenham in his second outing against his old club’ – Tom Barclay, The Sun.

A ‘came back to haunt’ in a pre-season friendly? Absolutely not.