No Question About That - a Manchester United podcast

#1054 | Ed and Paul pick through the fall out from City’s guilty verdict and conclude this is a geopolitical story more than football. The outcome might well owe more to diplomacy than to Premier League rules. Andy Burnham's situation and UK ties to Abu Dhabi suggest where the pressure is coming from.

There’s a long look at the City fanbase: why will so few will engage with the evidence or a reasonable discussion about what’s happened? How did a club that was once the punchline become the vehicle of a state?

There’s the damages bill that could run into billions and whether the other 19 clubs would really vote to expel. Could the only clean exit be a settlement fund and a forced change of ownership?

0:00 The guilty verdict

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#1053 | Daniel joins Ed to make the case that this was never really a football story: Manchester City's ownership is Abu Dhabi's ruling family operating through the exact same statecraft logic they apply to war, espionage and geopolitics. And that family’s refusal to ever hear the word "no" from anyone. It’s the instinct that produced the fraud itself.

Trace the money and the politics: Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth, the family network tying the state, the investment vehicle, the sponsors and the football club into one entity. Then there’s Andy Burnham's startlingly weak public response, read against his own history with City-linked land deals in East Manchester and the UK's broader security and investment ties to the UAE. 

Pep Guardiola is linked in the same way. His public advocacy on Gaza and Catalan independence is impossible to square with total silence on his own owners' role in Sudan. His City trophies cannot be separated from dirty money and the questions of doping that have followed his career since Barcelona. This is potentially the biggest scandal in the history of sport, precisely because of the geopolitics layered underneath it.

0:00 Intro: City found guilty

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#1052 | Jamie's latest Substack note gets the deep dive treatment: United's newly published loan documents show a real, dated path to finally clearing the $550 million Glazer-era LBO debt. The new notes are repayable at par with no further interest from 10 June 2029, but only if it's tied to a "stadium financing event," with a matching change-of-control clause built to let INEOS take a majority stake without triggering repayment. It’s complicated but clear.

Jamie's model puts the realistic cost for a new stadium closer to £3.2 billion once a typical overrun is applied to the headline £2 billion figure, funded through some mix of club debt, owner equity, and external partners. Personal seat licences could plausibly raise several hundred million pounds on its own.

The pod opens with City with Ed and Jamie still processing last week's guilty verdict and the Premier League timeline that could produce a sanction within months.

Jamie's note mentioned in the pod: https://spgoals.substack.com/p/can-ineos-clear-manchester-uniteds

And for my take on last week's finances: https://nqatpod.substack.com/p/uniteds-new-cash-machine

0:27 Intro

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#1051 | Ed and Adam use the City verdict to talk about reputation rather than punishment mechanics: City's for organising the fraud, the Premier League's for taking eight years and letting itself be outmuscled by lawyers, and Pep Guardiola's, since virtually everything he won at City was built on financial cheating he spent years publicly denying.

There's an awkward political dimension: City are owned by the UAE, a UK security and investment partner, and there’s scepticism that the other 19 clubs would vote for expulsion given how many owners have their own business ties to the Gulf. Given that, how might any punishment be constructed and what might be just? 

On Pep specifically, they trace a pattern running from his playing days through Barcelona to City. His legacy is now inseparable from the fraud that funded it. Then there’s the broadcasters who’ve pretended non of this was happening. Shame on them. 

0:27 Intro: 114 of 115 charges

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#1050 | Ed and Dominic discuss a momentous day. Manchester City have been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League, after a process that's run more than three and a half years, during which City won six trophies. The charges centre on disguising owner funding as sponsorship income and refusing to cooperate with investigators; no punishment has been decided yet.

Expect a long appeals process before anything is actually handed down. 

So what is the proportionate punishment? Points deductions, transfer restrictions, even expulsion are all discussed as genuine options, though retrospective title-stripping  seems unlikely. There's a longer, more uncomfortable question too: how do you separate City's sporting achievements from the financial fraud that funded them, and what does that mean for Pep Guardiola's legacy specifically, given how directly his trophies depended on money the club lied about.

0:26 Guilty on 114 of 115 charges

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#1049 | Manchester United's full-year financials landed the same week as defeats to City and Brighton and a draw at Fulham. Ed and Jamie's read is that the numbers tell a positive story: record revenue of £677.6 million, operating cash flow more than double what United generated the previous year, and a smaller real interest bill than the eye-catching accounting figure implies.

The episode works through where the financial resilience came from: ticket price rises, strong retail performance offsetting lost sponsors.

There's the £63.5 million spent on stadium land as the first sign of what United plan to do with the extra cash, and an explainer of INEOS's own complicated, heavily leveraged business, useful context for anyone hoping Jim Ratcliffe can simply write a bigger cheque. 

The episode closes on ownership: the price floor on a new buyer lifts in 2027, but with almost nobody left in the world both able and willing to pay Glazer-level prices for the club, don't expect a takeover any time soon.

0:27 Welcome and what's coming up

3:15 Full year financials: headline numbers

5:28 Matchday, ticketing and commercial revenue

10:04 Profitability and cash flow

14:43 Debt, interest and the stadium land

23:14 Guidance

28:50 INEOS explained

35:10 Ownership, the 2027 price floor and potential buyers

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#1048 | United Women are three games into new manager Eva Olid's reign: defeat to London City Lionesses, hammered by Chelsea, then a much-improved 1-1 draw at Arsenal, undone by a 95th-minute equaliser.

Ed and Andy assess Eva Olid's start given the circumstances, a very late appointment, barely any pre-season, no marquee signings.

There were some interesting changes at Arsenal, with Andrea Medina's shift into midfield the standout tactical call and performance of the three games so far.

Then there's some winnable fixtures ahead: Sheffield United in the League Cup and West Ham in the league, both real chances to record a first win.

0:00 Welcome, Andy

1:05 Draw with Arsenal

6:28 Assessing Eva Olid

13:02 Season expectations

24:01 League Cup

26:35 West Ham preview

28:34 WSL title race

31:18 Wrap-up

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#1047 | Another week another crisis? After United’s draw at Fulham, Ed and Dharnish push back on the reaction, arguing the underlying picture (29 shots, nearly 3 xG, more shots and box touches than any team in the league this season) suggests better times ahead. Shifts in fine margins turned this game into a mediocre week rather than a crisis.
The real issue is a press that keeps failing because Bruno and Rashford aren't suited to it. Carrick keeps asking them to do it anyway. 
In possession, the double false-nine setup leaves progression looking attractive, but nobody is actually in the box when it matters. This needs fixing before results turn even worse. 
They also take apart the widely shared running-stats graphic, arguing it reflects a possession-heavy style rather than laziness, using City's own numbers as the comparison.

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#1046 | United walked away from Fulham with a draw, Mateus Cunha's equaliser cancelling out Lisandro Martinez’ own goal. Fulham were there for the taking though. United had 29 shots, 57% possession, and somehow still seemed very passive when it mattered. No disaster, but yet more points leaking away.

Ed and Wayne look back on a performance that felt very familiar. The same tactical patterns are playing out. And the same weaknesses in the squad are evident too. The international break offers a moment to reset.

We end with a check-in on Wayne's new book. Ferguson, The Lost Tapes.

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0:00 Introduction

1:05 Team selection

15:45 Defence, build-up and player profiles

22:56 Carrick's game model

27:31 Ownership, finances and transfer strategy

35:15 Martinez's own goal

47:14 Verdict on Carrick

50:23 International break

55:07 Wayne's new book and sign-off

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#1045 | Ed and Dharnish discuss United’s 3-2 defeat to Brighton in the Carabao Cup. United’s heavily rotated side led 2-0 before collapsing, with an increasingly ugly atmosphere at Old Trafford on display. 

Shea Lacey's goal and a well-worked press that teed up Mount for the second were the rare bright spots in an otherwise chaotic performance from United.

There’s already a bigger question: are United’s results this season down to bad individual performances, or something wrong with Carrick's actual game model? There’s no easy answer, especially given how comfortably this same group won games last season doing something much simpler.

There's also a discussion of the JJ Gabriel contract saga, with both urging caution about how much scrutiny a 15-year-old should be under. But scepticism that his camp's version of events reflects what United would realistically have offered. They close by previewing Fulham this weekend.

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0:00 Introduction: 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton

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