Manchester United's ownership under Jim Ratcliffe faces fan backlash after poor start and ticket investigation

Sir Jim Ratcliffe cannot have imagined it would be like this.

When Ratcliffe agreed on Christmas Eve 2023 to spend £1.25bn to buy a minority stake in Manchester United, his intention was to restore the ailing club to its past glories.

Sitting in the directors' box at Old Trafford watching United lose 1-0 to a Manchester City side reduced to 10 men midway through the first half was definitely not part of the plan.

Ratcliffe knew major decisions needed to be made in order to slash the club's losses. And he knew they were bound to be unpopular.

But nearly three years on, he presumably felt the green shoots of recovery would be starting to grow by now.

After all, the project chief executive Omar Berrada spoke to staff about in September 2024 was an aspiration to win the Premier League title in 2028. In other words, next season.

On the evidence of this 199th Manchester derby, United are a very long shot to achieve Berrada's target.

At this point, even pacifying the thousands of fans who protested against the club's ownership before the Old Trafford defeat by 10-man City looks beyond them.

United now have four points from their opening four games. It equals their worst start to a Premier League season since 1992-93. Last season under Ruben Amorim, they also had four points from four matches.

To be clear, United's fans have - to a greater or lesser degree - protested against the owners since the Glazer family landed £600m-worth of debt on to a previously debt-free club with their leveraged buy-out in 2005.

In their most recent accounts to 31 March, United had an overall debt of £1.3bn, including outstanding transfer fees.

Since then they have refinanced $425m (£314m) worth of bonds at a higher interest rate than they had been previously. They also took an additional $125m (£92.4m) but are yet to explain what the additional funds will be used for.

The club's current financial position will be revealed on 23 September when it publishes its full year accounts to 30 June 2026.

Ratcliffe's involvement promised to change the situation. Yet many fans argue that, if anything, things have got worse.

Ill feeling has spilled over since United launched a ticket-touting investigation in the summer.

Although they have admitted to underestimating the number of fans who shared their account details and toned down some of the threats around season ticket confiscation if supporters failed to respond as requested, United officials defended the investigation.

Last week, they revealed 685 fan accounts had been banned, with a further 464 either sanctioned or warned.

However, United added that "468 cases were resolved after supporters responded with the relevant information. No further action was taken, as the information provided satisfactorily explained the activity identified".

Many match-going fans felt the investigation was an attack on them and decided to use the City game to protest - inside and outside Old Trafford.

Huge numbers with flares gathered outside the ground, heeding a call from the 1958 Group, before making their way through the Munich tunnel under the stadium.

Inside, The Red Army group of fans opted not to bring in their usual banners - instead display a single banner above the players' tunnel stating: "The way you treat us is a disgrace."

It meant the only banners in the stadium were the ones the club had themselves put up.

"Unless our generational match-going support is given a real voice that is actually listened to, the little that remains of our fan culture will soon be gone forever," said The Red Army group in a statement.

"TRA aren't a protest group, we're an 'atmosphere' group but we've never shied away from making our position clear when we believe not doing so would be to the detriment of the interests of match-going supporters."

It was noticeable many songs were sung in direct protest against Ratcliffe, as well as the Glazers.

"We wanted the Glazers out and that will never change," said Steve Compton of the the 1958 Group.

"Ratcliffe came in and gave us a glimmer, but his idea of putting Manchester back in Man Utd couldn't be any further from the truth.

"The club have made many statements, but one thing they haven't done is actually apologise to anyone. We've had hundreds of messages directly - this has affected people's health.

"These are regular Joes, working-class people who are sent an email telling them their ticket's been suspended with no actual evidence. How do you defend something you don't know what you're defending against?"

BBC Sport has approached Manchester United for comment.

There were boos from the home fans at the final whistle, although it was not entirely clear whether the reaction was triggered by their team's performance or the officials over the controversial offside call that confirmed Erling Haaland's second-half winner should stand.

Since Berrada spoke to staff, United have delivered their worst starts in three decades. Many United supporters feel an overall transfer spend of £148m this summer was not enough after Carrick's mid-season arrival led to an improvement that secured a third-place finish.

"I definitely appreciate the supporters," said Carrick.

"We want to try everything to make them happy. They're everything for this football club. I never take them for granted. I speak about that quite a lot, and it means a lot to me.

"I'm feeling for them today on the back of losing the game. We haven't got as many points as we would have liked at this point, for sure. There's no getting away from that."