As Manchester United drifts further and further from its former glories, it could not get any more symbolic than abandoning Old Trafford. This is exactly what Sir Jim Ratcliffe intends to do, and it proves that his plans to follow the Liverpool rebuild blueprint are already doomed to failure.
The club might have rolled out Sir Alex Ferguson to give the new stadium plans his seal of approval (despite Ratcliffe axing him from the payroll as part of his unpopular cost-cutting measures), but the sheer scale of the history being left behind cannot be underestimated. It calls to mind when FSG had to decide whether to redevelop Anfield or plough ahead with a new stadium.
It would be easy to brush aside the significance of that call. Other decisions, like the appointment of Jurgen Klopp or the smart transfer dealings of Michael Edwards, understandably take center stage in the narrative of how Liverpool turned itself around.
Ratcliffe has made no secret of wanting to emulate Liverpool, however much that may wind up fans. In his recent interview with the BBC, he name-checked the Reds twice.
“Manchester United has come off the rails,” he admitted. “We need to get it back on the rails, and I believe what we are doing will put it back on the rails and we’ll finish up being where Liverpool or Real Madrid are today in the future.”
Later on, Ratcliffe discussed timelines for turning Manchester United around. He again cited Liverpool in his plan to win silverware by 2028: “If you look at Arsenal, if you look at Liverpool, if you look at the period of time it took them to get the house in order and get back to winning ways, [2028] is probably slightly on the short end of the spectrum. But it’s not impossible.”
So the billionaire will focus his efforts on turning Manchester United into a well-run club. The brutal redundancies have been tone-deaf, especially as money has been frittered away on the shambolic retention of Erik ten Hag and appointment of Dan Ashworth, but the end goal is something that can sustain itself in the manner of Liverpool.
(Image: PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Ratcliffe ultimately wants his own Edwards and his own Klopp. (In the latter case, he is publicly saying that Ruben Amorim is that figure, backing him to remain at Manchester United for a long time).
Yet if you were to ask Klopp himself, he would certainly not underplay the importance of Anfield, nor discount it as a factor in restoring the glory days at Liverpool. How many times did he call upon the stadium to make something special happen?
Would Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona have been possible at the Google Pixel Arena or the Standard Chartered Bowl? I’m not so sure.
Yet despite wanting to emulate Liverpool, it’s clear that Ratcliffe has ignored the importance of history and pedigree. His 200 meter towers that stretch toward the heavens will be a monument to his own hubris.
Bricks and mortar might not correlate with results on a spreadsheet, but teams that come to Anfield don’t just take on 11 men — they take on all the title-winners that have gone before, battling the decades of received wisdom that this is one of the toughest places in football to go and get a result.
(Image: Visuals courtesy of Foster + Partners)
Naturally, this power can lie dormant if other decisions are not good. Anfield alone could not carry Liverpool through the Roy Hodgson era unscathed (although perhaps surprisingly, the Reds did only lose at home three times in that 2010/11 season).
But Anfield is football heritage. It is that extra one per cent in a game that can so often be decided on the slimmest of margins.
Old Trafford is the same. With its leaking roof and leaking defense, it has lost some of that mystique, but it is just waiting to be revived. Instead, it will be demolished. A circus tent will be erected in its place.
The looming new tridents will apparently be visible from the outskirts of Liverpool. Manchester United fans might wish Anfield had the same lines of sight, for it would be their best chance of witnessing some good football.
Because the Ratcliffe rebuild is already threatening to come to nothing. Certainly, despite his claims, he is not doing things the Liverpool way — embracing history, and not destroying it, is how you fix a football club.
