Man United must achieve Champions League Football after record-low Money League performance

Simon Jordan has argued Man United need Champions League fotball to compete with Europe’s elite after their record-low Deloitte Money League performance.

An uptick in form under interim-boss Michael Carrick has quelled concerns from fans about the club’s capacity for on-field success. 

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Beating Arsenal 2-3 at the Emirates and neighbours Man City 2-0 has taken them to fourth in the standings, broadening horizons and bolstering hopes of playing in Europe’s premier competition.

However, despite the upturn, the effects of the club’s woeful 15th place Premier League finish last season are still being felt.

Their longtime financial dominance has now markedly dwindled, as they have dropped out of the top five in the Deloitte Money League for the first time in their history.

The club has found itself in the startlingly-low position of eighth.

This places them behind Liverpool, City and, for the first time since records began, below Arsenal who sit in seventh.

The club was also eclipsed on the continent, with Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, and Real Madrid all placing higher. 

Once a financial and football rival of United, Madrid are more €360m ahead in first place, boasting revenues of €1,161bn.

Reacting to the decline of the club once seen as the gold standard of profit maximisation, talkSPORT host Jordan claimed football attainment is the only way for the Red Devils to turn things around.

He said: “It tells you that Man United aren’t able to generate the kind of revenues because their achievement on the field is miles off what you would expect it to be. Liverpool finished, what, ten, twelve places above Manchester United last year?

“If at a very minimum that’s two or three million pounds a place in terms of league merit payments and deeper in the Champions League. So if they’ve gone into the Europa League there’s probably a 50, 60, 70 million pound difference in that scenario.

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“So there’s £100 million that you can account for straight away based upon attainment. It’s surprising given that how poor Man United are that they still are at this level of eighth in the world of football.”

He added: “At the end of the day, a huge part of it does come with the success of the team. And so if you’re losing 100 odd and 120 130 million in merit positions by not performing in the Premier League, not being in the Champions League… I guarantee you if Man United were in the Champions League, they’d be close to eclipsing some of those clubs.”

INEOS and the wider Man United hierarchy view European football as essential.

Having already gained a miserly reputation, it is easy to understand why Jim Ratcliffe is keen to leave redundancies and austere cost-cutting measures behind.

And as they look to compete in the transfer market for top talent, the additional funds and the ability to offer Champions League football to the game’s brightest stars may prove decisive.

The club currently sit on 38 points, with rivals Chelsea and Liverpool on 37 and 36 points respectively.

In what will no doubt be a tense run in to the end of the season, this new-look United have to face both teams just two weeks apart in April and May, with a league double against both still possible.

Long before that, though, Man United host Fulham on February 1st before having a Europa League final re-run against Tottenham Hotspur the following week.

That’s followed by away fixtures at West Ham and Everton.

These are all teams Man United have failed to beat this season.