In a wide-ranging interview with BBC Sport earlier this week, Ratcliffe spoke about the difficulties that Ineos have encountered since their investment in the club.
Asked whether he understood the frustration of supporters following the fans’ protests before Sunday’s match against Arsenal, Ratcliffe said change took time and cited an example of “inheriting” transfer deals that the club are yet to pay off.
“I sympathise with them because Manchester United is not where it’s expected to be. We are expected to be winning the Premier League and challenging for the Champions League and we are not there at the moment,” he said. “But I think we need to get the house back in order before we can get back to our winning ways.
“It’s not a light switch. I’ll give you an example, if you look at the players we are buying this summer, that we didn’t buy, we are buying Antony, we are buying Casemiro, we are buying Andre Onana, we are buying Rasmus Hojlund, we are buying Jadon Sancho.
“These are all things from the past but whether we like it or not we have inherited those things and we have to sort it out. For Sancho, who obviously now plays for Chelsea – and we pay half his wages – we are paying £17m to buy him in the summer. So it takes time for us to move away from the past into a new place in the future.”
Asked later in the interview about ‘inheriting’ players, Ratcliffe said the club had – in some situations – spent too much on players that are not good enough but did not specify any players.
“Some are not good enough, some are probably overpaid,” said Ratcliffe.
“But for us to mould a squad, that we are fully responsible for and accountable for, will take time. We’ve got this period where we will move from the past to the future and we are in the middle of that period.
“There are some great players in the squad as we know. The captain is a fabulous footballer. We definitely need Bruno [Fernandes]. Without him it would be really tough.”
