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Hello! Abandon your knife and fork. The days of meal tickets at Old Trafford are over.

On the way:

Up to 150-200 redundancies at Man Utd, staff food to be downgraded

You really do have to hand it to INEOS. Fourteen months of slicing and dicing Manchester United and still it metes out savage cuts like Uma Thurman’s Hattori Hanzo sword.

Yesterday brought another round of them, including this titbit in a piece from Mark Critchley on the latest economising; cutbacks which included the end of free hot meals for employees at Old Trafford and the downscaling of the canteen at United’s training ground:

“Catering at Carrington will be unchanged for the remainder of the season but is expected to eventually see staff offered only soup and bread, with no changes to offerings for players.”

Reducing the menu to almost nil was a footnote in a graver announcement, cheerfully advertised as a “transformation plan”. The crux of it is a fresh round of redundancies — between 150 and 200, as The Athletic predicted — which United claim is necessary to “improve financial sustainability and enhance efficiency”.

“Hard choices” was CEO Omar Berrada’s choice of phrase and, this morning, our writers Adam Crafton and Laurie Whitwell joined Mark in publishing the inside track on the internal meeting Berrada fronted. The tone of the gathering sounds grim.

Readers of TAFC will be familiar with the trend of INEOS slashing outgoings ever since it bought a minority stake in United from the Glazer family in December 2023. It’s worth a recap of what else has been targeted in its time in charge of football operations:

• Yesterday’s redundancies are on top of a prior move to shed 200 staff. That’s a combined cull of up to 400 people at a club who, last season, averaged 1,140 monthly employees. By comparison, Premier League champions Manchester City had 611 in the same period.
• In October, INEOS ended its ambassadorial arrangement with United’s most successful manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, saving £2m a year.
• Traditional perks for the rank and file, such as the annual Christmas party and free travel and accommodation for last season’s FA Cup final, were withdrawn.
• Three months ago, United hiked ticket prices for home games this season to £66, binning concessionary categories in the process.

The Athletic’s analysis spells it all out in stark fashion. The parsimony has so far delivered one FA Cup and an on-field blueprint as devoid of life as most others since the Ferguson era ended. But why the drastic action? And will it breathe life into their longer-term performance?

Debt of £734m

You would be forgiven for regarding United as a wealthy outfit. Deloitte’s annual money league had them turning over £639m ($807m) in 2023-24, a figure only Real Madrid vastly outstripped.

But, despite that income, they have posted a loss in the past five financial years and the legacy of the Glazers’ leveraged takeover in 2005 is acute (as is supporter anger towards them). Debt stands at £734m, of which two-thirds is owed to the Glazers. Interest payments in 2023-24 cost just over £37m, roughly the same amount United stand to save by making 200 redundancies.

Footballing errors have torched funds, too, such as the £10.4m lost to sacking Erik ten Hag months after extending his deal and the £4m wasted on a short-lived partnership with sporting director Dan Ashworth (both INEOS calls and INEOS mistakes).

In competitive terms, United are wading through treacle and in the view of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and pals, it will be treacle indefinitely without sustained belt-tightening. Bread and water might be the order of the day for a while longer yet.

📲 All of our United exclusives, plus podcasts and feature content, will reach you via our dedicated WhatsApp group. You can join the channel here.

News round-up

(Lamine Yamal/Instagram; Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images)

• Lamine Yamal’s treatment at the hands of Las Palmas on Saturday left him with a bloodied foot (above). Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick wants referees to give his young livewire more protection. “It’s the sensible thing to do,” Flick said.
• Galatasaray versus Fenerbahce last night had zero chance of passing off quietly. Galatasaray are accusing Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho of making racist statements after a 0-0 draw. Fenerbahce say his comments were “deliberately distorted”.
• In the face of legal threats, Marseille president Pablo Longoria rapidly rowed back on his suggestion that French football is rigged and French referees are corrupt. I thought he might.
• Rangers’ short-term replacement for sacked boss Philippe Clement is Barry Ferguson. Ferguson’s a club legend, but given his weak track record as a coach, there’s surely no way this appointment goes further than the end of the season.
• After years of persistence, Canada have succeeded in persuading Bournemouth forward Daniel Jebbison to declare for them. He’s previously represented England at youth level.

PSG face fourth tier’s Stade Briochin in cup which helps underdogs 

England’s FA Cup was built on clashes between clubs at opposite ends of the food chain, but its latter stages are never as out-of-kilter as this season’s Coupe de France.

It’s quarter-final time for the French and the line-up is extraordinary: four Ligue 1 teams and two second-division sides mixed with two from the country’s fourth tier. The plot lines are deep and we brought you one a few weeks ago when Dunkerque’s goalkeeper knocked out Lille by converting the winning penalty in a shootout (see celebrations above).

In a positive sense, France is reaping what it sowed in the late 1980s. The Coupe de France is structured to automatically give home advantage to small teams who draw big fish. It also shuns two-legged ties and extra time, creating fertile ground for upsets.

The highlight, tomorrow evening, is Stade Briochin (division four) against Paris Saint-Germain (division massive). Stade Briochin, who have already eliminated Nice, have 10 full-time staff and a budget of £1.1m (PSG’s is £800m). As one of them told Tom Williams, in comparison to PSG, “we’re not even in the same galaxy”.

The trophy has PSG’s name on, of that there’s no doubt, but in terms of unpredictability, the Coupe de France is doing what too many other competitions cannot. Chapeau.

Around The Athletic FC

• Last night’s Championship promotion face-off between Sheffield United and Leeds United went the way of Leeds, helped by the above rocket from Joel Piroe. The Whites look inevitable.
• Paul Power from SkillCorner was a guest on The Athletic FC Tactics Podcast, talking about a favourite TAFC subject: the rampant advance of data and AI. It’s on Apple and Spotify.
• Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz got himself into double figures for Bundesliga assists over the weekend. It’s a good excuse to point you towards Michael Cox’s take on the way Wirtz manipulates space between the lines. He’s a master of it.
• Michael has also written on Arne Slot succeeding at Liverpool in the absence of an out-and-out No 9. Is a 4-2-4-0 formation the future?
• Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: Liverpool’s giant leap towards Premier League glory.

Catch a match

(Selected games, times ET/UK)

Premier League (all Peacock Premium/TNT Sports unless stated): Brighton vs Bournemouth, 2.30pm/7.30pm; Crystal Palace vs Aston Villa, 2.30pm/7.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/TNT Sports; Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Fulham, 2.30pm/7.30pm; Chelsea vs Southampton, 3.15pm/8.15pm.

Copa del Rey semi-final first leg: Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid, 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+/Premier Sports.

Coppa Italia quarter-final: Inter vs Lazio, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Premier Sports.

Coupe de France quarter-final: Angers vs Reims, 3pm/8pm — Fox Sports, Fubo (U.S. only).

And finally…

In all my 44 years, I’m not sure I can recall a red-card offence so brutal as the one Uruguay’s Copa Nacional de Selecciones witnessed on Saturday.

This, above, is Mario Gonzalez of Soriano Capital smacking Paysandu Interior’s Enzo Echeveste as a regional final between the teams got out of hand. Echeveste’s side were 1-0 up, a lead they retained going into the second leg later this week.

Gonzalez’s flash of anger will see him miss the return fixture, although the organisers of the cup have not responded to a question from TAFC asking if he will face extra punishment. He told a radio station in Uruguay he would write to Echeveste to apologise. Echeveste took to Instagram to insist it was all water under the bridge. He must be the forgiving type.

(Top photo: Crystal Pix/MB Media/Getty Images)