How Omar Berrada is driving change at Manchester United before he has even started amid double exit

Less than five months ago, Patrick Stewart was introduced to journalists in the Old Trafford press room before the Chelsea game. That was the sum of our interaction with the interim Manchester United chief executive.

The appointments of Sir Dave Brailsford and Jean-Claude Blanc to the football board and John Reece and Rob Nevin to the board of directors made the departures of the time-served Stewart and chief financial officer Cliff Baty inevitable.

Baty, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Joel Glazer, joined United in 2016 and used to be prominent on the quarterly conference calls. Baty was asked the fateful question, "Do you see any potential for the amount of sponsorship opportunities given to your performance?"

He answered but Ed Woodward had the final word: "Does the impact of a successful season have an impact in terms of the commercial side of the business? If I just answer that simply and candidly: Playing performance doesn't really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business."

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The last 20 words are engraved on Woodward's United tombstone. Baty, by virtue of association with the Glazer regime and Woodward, was bound to be on borrowed time when Sir Jim Ratcliffe was the only bidder left at the table.

Woodward's fellow University of Bristol alumni Richard Arnold and Matt Judge have left in the last two years and John Murtough, one of Woodward's first administrative appointments, resigned last month. It is the end of an era, or an error.

Sources have suggested Baty's appointment as chief financial officer in 2017 contributed to the raft of senseless contract renewals. Think Marcos Rojo and Chris Smalling in 2018, Anthony Martial, Phil Jones and Victor Lindelof in 2019, Eric Bailly in 2021 etc.

Baty's logic was that new deals maintained asset value on the balance sheet. It also bloated the wage bill and left United saddled with players who had long outstayed their welcome. Rojo, Jones and Bailly left on frees and Martial will also be released. Smalling left within eight months.

There were even discussions with Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba about potential new contracts. The trio either rejected or walked away from negotiations.

The announcement of Baty's departure is maybe not a coincidence with United open to offers for almost every member of their squad. The complacent culture that Woodward cultivated is seemingly at an end, though the new structure has to earn its stripes in the coming months.

Ineos sporting chief executive Blanc, now the interim United chief executive for two-and-a-half months, accompanied Ratcliffe, Nevin, Andy Currie and Sir Dave Brailsford as part of the delegation that visited Old Trafford and Carrington in March last year. He was also in attendance for the FA Cup win at Wigan Athletic in January.

Blanc has been billed as "one of the most experienced sports executives in Europe", having previously been chairman and chief executive at Juventus and deputy chief executive at Paris Saint-Germain. Although not as visible as fellow football board member Brailsford, he has been actively involved in the management of the club since Ratcliffe's 27.7% investment was agreed.

Roger Bell, Baty's replacement, retired as the chief financial officer of Ineos earlier this year for a "change in direction". He is a lifelong United fan.

Club sources have stressed operational efficiency is paramount amid United's compliance with the Premier League and Uefa's financial fair play regulations. United were fined for a minor breach of Uefa's rules last year.

United sources say the club is entering a new era "that places performance of all our teams on the pitch at the heart of what we do". Ineos believe United need a modern structure to reflect their performance-focused approach and that will be underpinned by incoming chief executive Omar Berrada, still on gardening leave at Manchester City.

Berrada will officially start at United on July 13 but he is understood to have been maintaining contacts and networking to ensure he hits the ground running in July.