'We're still missing out' - Sir Jim Ratcliffe makes worrying Man Utd recruitment admission | OneFootball

Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe revealed that his club "completely missed the data revolution" in football, with recruitment entirely reliant upon technical director Jason Wilcox.

Ratcliffe's damning verdict of the club's analytics department comes hot on the heels of the club's latest transfer blunder as Chelsea snapped up United's long-term target Sporting CP's Geovany Quenda.

That particular misstep was more a question of negotiation rather than identification, but there are no shortage of examples when it comes to the club's dire track record in the transfer market. As part of his surprisingly passionate defence of the Glazer family, Ratcliffe blamed United's former chief executives for the mangled approach in the off-season.

"The biggest correlation is between success and money," United's minority sharehold told The Times. "But then Manchester United broke the mould, because they spent the money so poorly."

"United completely missed the data revolution," Ratcliffe continued, "which Brighton and Brentford didn't, which Liverpool didn't either. Liverpool had Ian Graham analysing data between 2012 and 2023. They brought in Jurgen Klopp and they had Michael Edwards as sporting director and Graham, who is the genius in football on data analytics."

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is concerned about the club's ability to identify players / Michael Regan/GettyImages

"Graham was the forerunner and United missed out," Ratcliffe continued. "We're still missing out, because we still don't have data analysis at United."

Dan Ashworth was whisked away from Newcastle United at great expense to serve as United's sporting director before promptly parting ways with the club five months later due to what Ratcliffe described as a "chemistry" issue. Jason Wilcox remains at the helm in an increasingly all-consuming role.

"All we've got is Jason's eyes," Ratcliffe bemoaned. "And Jason, for me, is a guy at the coal face. He ran the academy at Manchester City. Txiki Begiristain, I know, thought Jason had the best eyes in the club."

Ratcliffe was full of praise for Wilcox's scouting abilities and his strong working relationship with head coach Ruben Amorim, but rightly pointed out the impossible demands of placing an entire club's recruitment strategy squarely on the shoulder's of one mortal human. "What he can't do is watch every match," the co-owner sighed.

"And that's what the computer does. The computer can watch every match that every player has played in every league for every year they've ever played football. So you have to marry the two pieces of data and then it tells you something. And that's what Brighton and Brentford have done. And also it's then much easier to spot the younger talent because the computer does that. Jason can tell you every good 21-year-old, but not every good 16-year-old."

Rather than expand their recruitment department, United have undergone extreme and highly controversial personnel cuts across all aspects of the club. "This is our unpleasant year, when we have to make all those not particularly nice decisions, letting people go, that sort of stuff," Ratcliffe shrugged. "That'll all be done in the summer and then it's about recruitment.

"You can have a fancy stadium, but if you haven't got recruitment right you're not going to win football matches."