By Kieran Maguire

27th Sep, 2023 | 1:30pm

Kieran Maguire drops 'extreme' Man United claim - 'you can understand the staff concerns'

The takeover saga at Man United has made the club a ‘pantomime’ both on and off the field.

That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who exclusively told Football Insider that the poor decision-making at Old Trafford is affecting their staff and employees.

As reported by The Athletic, Man United CEO Richard Arnold faced questions from club staff this week over the club’s takeover saga and growing debt.

Arnold urged staff to “hang tight and be resilient” while claiming a strategic review of the future of the club is ongoing.

The Glazers are still yet to make a final decision on whether to sell their majority stake in the club, with bidders Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim waiting to hear back on their bids for the club.

Maguire believes there is an ‘extreme’ lack of leadership at Old Trafford which is causing concerns among club employees.

“Well, there’s an awful lot of noise surrounding Manchester United and it has become a pantomime both on and off the field,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.

“You want calm and you want a safe pair of hands to be making the big decisions in terms of recruitment and in terms of the strategy of the club.

“There’s no doubt that if Manchester United’s football side of the business was as good as their commercial side, Manchester United would be very close to the top of the Premier League because they have done fantastically well.

“But people read the headlines and Manchester United is a big employer in the city of Manchester itself. The club will fear a staff exodus – people have had enough and want to leave the club.

“You can understand their concerns because on on a personal level, every individual employee wants a degree of certainty and that’s what they’re not getting.

“There appears to be an extreme lack of leadership.“

In other news, Aaron Hickey ‘happy’ at Brentford after Man United and Arsenal links