Manchester United's new minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said he wants to break the dominance of Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League and believes he can do it within three years.
Ratcliffe's 27.7% stake was formally approved on Tuesday, and speaking on Wednesday, the 71-year-old said he wants to knock both City and Liverpool “off their perch”.
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It is a reference to a quote made by Sir Alex Ferguson when he took over as United manager in 1986, when he said he wanted to topple Liverpool, who dominated the English league in the 1970s and 1980s.
“We have a lot to learn from our noisy neighbor and the other neighbor,” Ratcliffe said.
“They are the enemy at the end of the day. There is nothing I would like more than to take them both down. They have been in a good place for a while and there are things we can learn from both of them.
“They have sensible organizations, great people within the organizations, a good, motivated, elite environment that they work in. I respect them a lot, but they are still the enemy.”
City and Liverpool have combined to win the last six Premier League titles, while Pep Guardiola's side are hoping to win a record fourth consecutive championship this season.
United, meanwhile, won the last of their 20 titles under Ferguson in 2013 and are sixth in this season's table, 13 points behind Liverpool at the top.
But despite more than a decade of poor results at Old Trafford, Ratcliffe believes three years is a reasonable time frame to regain success.
“Fans would run out of patience if it was a 10-year plan,” he said.
“But it's certainly a three-year plan to get there. To think that next season we will play football as well as Manchester City did against Real Madrid last year is not sensible.
“And if we give people false expectations, they will be disappointed. So I think the key is our track record, so that people can see that we are progressing. Because it is not easy to turn Manchester United into the best football in the world.” equipment.”
Meanwhile, Ratcliffe, speaking in London, branded Newcastle “fools” following negotiations to hire sporting director Dan Ashworth.
Newcastle wants a compensation package of between £15 million ($18.9 million) and £20 million ($25.2 million), with the 51-year-old also serving a long period of gardening leave.
Ratcliffe has also left the door open to the possible return of Mason Greenwood, on loan at Getafe following criminal and club investigations for alleged abusive behaviour.
“I can talk about the beginning, I'm not going to talk about Mason,” Ratcliffe said. “I'm familiar with it. The beginning is the important one because we will have other problems in the future.
“We will make a decision, yes, correct. And we will justify it one way or another.
“All I can do is talk about the principle of how we will approach it. Is he the right type of footballer? Is he a good person or not?”
