Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe put his head above the parapet on Monday to answer questions from Gary Neville and others on the on and off-field disaster hes overseen for the last year at Old Trafford.
He admitted to a couple of errors having made at least 17 of themclaimed Ruben Amorim is doing an excellent job and continues to provide an umbrella for the Glazers.
After some fact-checking weve called him on five instances of bullsh*t.
The salary bill whataboutery
I think what hes got out of the players hes got available, I think hes done well with, Ratcliffe clarified having claimed Ruben Amorim is doing an excellent job.
Do you?! Gary Neville replied in shockand before he could figure out how to frame a next question that didnt hint at the Manchester United co-owner knowing sweet f*** all about football, Ratcliffe engaged in some very flawed salary bill whataboutery.
If I look at the wage costs of the club thats available to him, that wage bill is not the income bill of Manchester City or Liverpool, its a fraction of it.
If you look at the salary bill of the players that are available to him that are not injured, or not out on loan, because weve got, you know, weve got Antony out on loan, weve got [Jadon] Sancho out on loan, weve got [Marcus] Rashford out on loan, weve got Mason Mount who hasnt really played in the last two seasons, weve got Luke Shaw who hasnt played in the last two seasons.
So if you modify our salary bill for the players that are not available to Ruben, then our salary bill ranks us about, you know, middling, second half of the table. Were type of degree with the likes of a Nottingham Forest or Everton, hardly a Manchester City one.
That wage costs, if you look at that wage bill, is probably about 130m, and were talking about Liverpool whos got a salary bill of 200m, Manchester City have got a salary bill of 300m, but thats the squad that Rubens playing with.
Manchester Citys salary according to Capology is 223m and even according to Ratcliffes caveated United salary bill, 130m still puts them above Liverpool ( 129m ) and all other Premier League clubs other than Arsenal ( 179m ) and Chelsea ( 161m ).
They are not sort of level with Everton ( 72m ), and certainly not with Nottingham Forest ( 55m ), who are currently 11 places and 16 points above Ratcliffes United.
A couple of errors
Ratcliffe essentially admitted to the couple of errors it was impossible to shirk the blame for. There is simply no way that handing Erik ten Hag a new contract and hiring Dan Ashworth before sending him packing after five weeks could have been dressed up to be anything other than large failures.
But we would probably have brought up one or two of his other 17 mistakes at Old Trafford had we had the opportunity to conduct the interview, including the clubs policy of contacting family members of the recently deceased to enquire over the status of their season tickets, and we would definitely , have gone armed with a picture of former Manchester United captain Katie Zelem to see if he now knows who the bloody hell she is.
When asked if he wanted to clear up the Zelem information, Ratcliffe answered: No, no actually.
Four of the best eight workers not available
If you look at the best eight people in terms of pay in Manchester United, 50 % of those are not obtainable to Ruben.
Physically correct. Marcus Rashford ( 300k per week ), Mason Mount ( 250k ), Jadon Sancho ( 150k ) and Luke Shaw ( 150k ) are all currently unavailable. And pointing out that quarter of Liverpools cream may be gone ( though we may apply a different turn of phrase ) if Arne Slot faced similar problems is good enough as their major eight features Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alexis Mac Allister, Alisson and Ryan Gravenberch, but to namecheck Manchester City in similar terms given theyve been without Rodri, Kevin De Bruyne and John Stones for huge chunks of the plan was unexpected.
And it was also convenient not to have mentioned second-placed Arsenal given Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are all in their top eight earners.
Progress under Amorim
Having described Erik ten Hags reign as erratic, Ratcliffe claimed that after a difficult start under Amorim weve seen progress.
Nonsense. If anything, after a decent start results have deteriorated. Manchester United won four and drew one of their opening seven games under Amorim, with the only defeats coming against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, both of whom look set for Champions League football next season. Theyve won just seven of 19 games since.
MORE ON THE RATCLIFFE INTERVIEWS ON F365
 , Do you?! Neville baffled by Ratcliffes Amorim assessment amid Man Utd salary bill whataboutery
  ,Ratcliffe admits Ashworth among couple of errors as Man Utd chief makes bust by Christmas claim
  ,Ratcliffe names five Man Utd players in not good enough or overpaid admission
The Glazers umbrella
Banners saying we want our club back and 1bn stolen were on show as Manchester United fans protested the Glazers ownership on Sunday, referring to the amount spent on servicing the debt loaded on to United when the Glazer family bought the club in 2005.
Uniteds current total debt, including 300m in outstanding transfer fees which Ratcliffe was eager to point out is in excess of 1bn. In the last financial year they paid 37m in interest on the debt.
Its not the solution to keep throwing money at the problem, Ratcliffe told Neville when asked about the lack of investment from the Glazers.
Sure, but the Glazers investing just 45m ( or half an Antony ) of their own money into Manchester United in two decades is criminal. The owners of newly-promoted Ipswich Town have put 83m into their club, Southamptons owners have pumped 85m into the Saints and Bill Foley has put 93m worth of funding into Bournemouth.
In just two years, Todd Boehly and BlueCo have pumped 146m into Chelsea.  , Manchester Citys Abu Dhabi owners have invested 1.3bn into their club since 2008. Former Everton chief Farhad Moshiri invested 750m into the Toffees since 2016.
Rather than taking aim at the Glazers over the damage theyre clearly most at fault for, he poked fun at Ed Woodward and previous management teams for hiring a body language expert on 175k and making similarly lavish spending decisions.
Youve got to get the house in order. If you look at the reason the debt is at the level it is at the moment, thats increased by 330million in the last four years because the clubs been spending so much more than its earning.
Thats part of the reason, but its also got a lot to do with the Glazers not giving two shiny sh*ts about Manchester United. As Neville said, Ratcliffe is now providing an umbrella over their heads which should instead be folded and handed to the United fans for them to keep jabbing the Americans with.
