New Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has engaged in some ruthless cost-cutting since investing in the club, including making 250 staff members redundant
Ruben Amorim has warned his Manchester United players that they “have to fight for a place in the team”, highlighting Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s recent decision to axe 250 staff members.
United have been through a number of changes since Ratcliffe bought a stake in the club and took control of football operations, including some major cost-cutting which included the redundancies of 250 members of staff.
Veteran defender Jonny Evans, whose father and wife previously worked for the club, admitted the cuts were “difficult to see” and Amorim has now highlighted them when demanding more from his players.
When asked about his decision to leave both Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho out of the squad for United’s dramatic comeback win over rivals Manchester City, Amorim said: “It’s important to say why: it was not a disciplinary thing.
“Next week, next game, new life, they are fighting for their places. For me it’s important, the performance in training, the performance in games, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with teammates, the way you push your teammates.
“Everything is important in our context in the beginning of something when we want to change a lot of things, when people in our club are losing their jobs we have to set the standards really high and for that they have to fight for a place in the team.
“Today the team proved we can leave anyone out of the squad and manage to win if you play together. If it was disciplinary, I would say that here and it will be a bigger problem but was not that.”
Amorim’s comments come after former United striker Michael Owen said the club’s heart and soul has “been ripped out” by the cuts. “When I was at Manchester United, all the kit men, the canteen ladies, the security, the receptionist, the physios, the doctors, it’s the backroom team that you know so much – if you go back now it’s literally all been ripped out,” Owen told the Manchester Evening News, speaking courtesy of AceOdds.
“It’s quite heartbreaking for people that you know who have lost their jobs. The casual fans don’t care, they just want to see their team lifting a trophy whereas to us players, if I speak to oldLiverpoolteammates and say, ‘oh, you’ve been back to Liverpool lately, I went back to the training ground and I know nobody’.
“It’s just a different club. The badge is still the same and the bricks and mortar are still the same, but inside it’s just totally different and that’s what matters to us who have lived it and were on the inner sanctum.”
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