Salvation? United fans may still end up feeling like jumping off a Cliffe

IF success in business has amassed you a fortune of £ 16 billion, the chances are not everyone will find your principles and/or morals particularly palatable.

And that much certainly applies to trade union-bashing tax exile, Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

But unless it ever becomes a law that football clubs in the UK must have majority fan ownership, characters such as Ratcliffe will be liberally dotted around the Premier League.

If we needed a reminder that, in the eyes of most supporters, relative success on the pitch simply obliterates any owners' sins, there is Newcastle United.

And if and when Ratcliffe comes into Old Trafford, any reservations about his character, about how he has become so unimaginably rich, will be gone at the slightest sign of a significant upturn in the team's performance.