Nearly two years after Sir Jim Ratcliffe became a significant shareholder at Manchester United, the promise of renewal still feels more theoretical than real. From the moment he arrived, Ratcliffe framed the task as a long and difficult rebuild rather than an instant revival. He spoke openly about decline, about the dangers of rushed decisions, and about the need for a carefully constructed plan. Central to that plan was a belief that United should study their most successful neighbour and learn from how Manchester City had rebuilt themselves into a modern football power.
Ratcliffe’s admiration for City has never been subtle. He has repeatedly pointed to their organisational clarity, their internal competitiveness and their football under Pep Guardiola as examples of what elite clubs now look like. His view was that before United could challenge again on the pitch, they had to resemble the best-run clubs away from it. That conviction has shaped almost every major executive decision since his arrival.
The most eye-catching move was the recruitment of Omar Berrada as chief executive. Having played a central role in City’s rise, Berrada was widely seen as an operator capable of bringing structure and discipline to a club long accused of chaos. His appointment was quickly followed by others with similar backgrounds. Jason Wilcox arrived after years overseeing City’s academy, later becoming United’s sporting director. Around them came performance specialists, academy leaders, communications executives and coaches whose résumés all pointed back to the Etihad.
This concentration of former City staff was not unique in English football. Clubs across the pyramid have spent the last decade trying to extract expertise from City’s ecosystem, viewing it as the gold standard of modern football operations. United’s version of this trend, however, carried greater symbolic weight. For a club built on the idea of setting standards rather than following them, borrowing so heavily from a local rival felt uncomfortable to many supporters.
Yet describing the process as simple imitation misses some important nuance. United have not attempted to replicate City’s entire model. Multi-club ownership, a cornerstone of City Football Group’s success, has not been embraced in the same way. Ratcliffe’s wider football interests exist, but rather than integrating them into a shared system, he has explored stepping away from them. The goal at Old Trafford has not been to copy City wholesale, but to import individuals thought capable of imposing order on a fractured institution.
The more pressing issue is whether those individuals have delivered coherence. On that front, the evidence is mixed at best. Despite the rhetoric about patience and long-term thinking, United’s decision-making has remained erratic. Managers have been retained, dismissed and replaced in quick succession. Senior football executives have been hired only to leave months later. Just look at what happened to revered Dan Ashworth. Each change has reset priorities rather than reinforcing them.
The appointment of Ruben Amorim exposed these contradictions most clearly. Ratcliffe had spoken about establishing a club-wide football identity that would guide recruitment and coaching, from the academy to the first team. Amorim’s tactical preferences, however, bore little relation to what was being developed elsewhere in the club. The result was a disjointed period in which the first team moved in one direction while the academy moved in another, undermining the very idea of a unified vision.
Criticism has inevitably followed. Some former players and supporters have questioned whether importing City alumni aligns with United’s culture. Others argue that competence matters more than history, and that past affiliations should be irrelevant. Both views have merit, but they distract from the central question. The problem is not where these executives previously worked, but whether they have collectively imposed clarity and stability.
So far, United still look like a club searching for itself. City modernised early, defined how they wanted to play, and built every department around that identity. United spent years denying they were falling behind, then years convincing themselves they had caught up. Ratcliffe’s arrival was meant to end that cycle. Instead, two seasons on, United remain adrift, still talking about direction rather than demonstrating it.
Looking across the city for inspiration is understandable. Whether that inspiration has been translated into progress is far less clear. Until United stop oscillating between ideas and start committing to one, the attempt to learn from City will feel less like strategic borrowing and more like uncertainty dressed up as ambition.