A STAND-UP JOB FOR REDS

BILLIONAIRE INEOS CHIEF HAS ALREADY MADE AN , IMPACT AT OLD TRAFFORD AS DEAL PROGRESSES

- TYRONE MARSHALL

THERE are years of stagnation to unpick at Manchester United, but just eight weeks since they agreed a deal to buy a 25% share of the club, Ineos are making swift progress in making this look like an elite football club.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe's £1.3bn deal is yet to officially clear every hurdle, with confirmation likely next week, but as befitting a businessman who has built an empire making him Britain's second-richest man, he is getting his ducks in a row ready for when he does move in.

It will be eight weeks this weekend since the Christmas Eve announcement that the Glazers had agreed a deal with Ratcliffe for a minority stake in the club and since then Joel and Avram, the Glazer siblings most closely involved with United, have had a lesson in the kind of authority, decision-making and ambition required to run a world-class club.

In the first eight years of their tenure, the Glazers struck lucky. They sat back and let Sir Alex Ferguson rule the club with an iron fist. The trophies continued to pile up despite the gradual tightening of the belts, although that did mean that the squad Ferguson bequeathed David Moyes in 2013 wasn't good enough. Only an alchemist of Ferguson's quality could have turned them into title winners the year before.