Rio Ferdinand addresses elephant in the room about INEOS' time at Man Utd which no other pundit has dared say

Rio Ferdinand has publicly questioned some of the decisions made by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the INEOS group as Manchester United continue to struggle, both on and off the pitch.

Ratcliffe, who is the founder and majority owner of INEOS, assumed total control of football operations last year after acquiring a 27.7 per cent stake in United, worth around $1.6billion [£1.25bn].

There was initially plenty of optimism around the takeover. Ratcliffe pledged to upgrade Old Trafford into a state-of-the-art venue and the appointment of Omar Berrada as chief executive was seen as shrewd business.

Erik ten Hag was also backed in the transfer window last summer as Joshua Zirkzee, Matthijs De Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte arrived in big-money deals.

But with United sitting 15th in the Premier League after a disastrous run of form, the ownership has been widely criticised, especially after they implemented significant cutbacks, including staff redundancies.

Now, former defender Rio Ferdinand has given his thoughts on INEOS' promising start to life at Manchester United, and the months that followed.

Speaking on his podcast Rio Ferdinand Presents, the 46-year-old said: "Firstly, I think with INEOS, they couldn't have come into Manchester United in a better circumstance than they did.

"The fans were absolutely against the Glazers and they have been for a while, so they have huge kudos when they walked through the front door.

"They've gone quickly towards reversing that with some of the things they've done. The culling of the jobs, getting rid of a lot of the staff at the football club.

"From the outside, I look at it and go, could you have done it a different way? Could they have gone to the Glazers and said, listen, can we cut some of the money you're taking out as a management fee almost every year, which is in the 20's of millions of pounds every year that they take out."

Ferdinand added: "Sacrifice a little bit here, please, for the good of this club that you invested a lot of time in and let us have a chance of getting back to the top."

Ferdinand also claimed keeping Ruud van Nistelrooy at Old Trafford following his short, but successful interim spell should have been marked as a “non-negotiable” by Ratcliffe and INEOS.

Van Nistelrooy, who joined United's coaching staff last summer alongside fellow assistant Rene Hake, was ushered into the hot seat when Erik ten Hag was sacked in October following a poor start to the season.

The Dutchman took charge of four matches across all competitions and stayed unbeaten with three wins and a draw.

"At Man Utd, Ruud [Van Nistelrooy] is a different animal," Ferdinand said. "There’s a different respect. He resonates at Man Utd. I look at that and I’m like, ‘How has my man been allowed to leave?’. In some capacity, there was surely something there.

“Amorim has his decisions and I respect that but sometimes as a club, you gotta be strong and say that’s a non-negotiable that’s sitting right there and it’s him [Van Nistelrooy]."