There was a peculiarly opaque metaphor Sir Jim Ratcliffe used when explaining the precarious financial situation he claimed Manchester United were in not so long ago.

“There’s a sort of forest of numbers at Manchester United,” Ratcliffe said when pressed on why or how he did not see this financial meteorite he now described plummeting towards the club before agreeing to hand over £1bn for a 25 per cent stake and the reins of the operation.

And the “Jim Reaper” continued the metaphor, keen to clarify why he had wielded his scythe so brutally to cull 450 of the 1,100 club staff.

“If you get in the Conference League, it’s a different thing again,” he said, in interviews with The Times and The Telegraph in March.

“If you come fourth in the Premier League, it’s one thing. If you come 14

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