Manchester United chief reveals the 'five non-negotiables' at the club

Plenty of questions have been fired Manchester United's way after their hugely disappointing start to the new season.

Erik ten Hag's side have lost both Premier League games so far, and sit bottom of the table. A crunch clash at home to Liverpool is next up and a third successive loss would only intensify the pressure on the Dutchman and his under-performing players.

Whilst some may be questioning the approach by club coaches and staff, United's head of academy Nick Cox has spoken about the ethos and 'non-negotiables' within the club. Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Cox said: "At Manchester United right now we’ve got five non-negotiables. Things like you’ve got to work hard, I want you to be respectful… that gets boxed off by appointing good members of staff.

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"Then there are non-negotiables, like how many hours you work and job description…that gets boxed off by the HR department. In terms of high performance, if you’ve got a group of people together, [there's] no point in me giving you the non-negotiables, you’ve got to work them out for yourself because then you’ll police them, you’ll own them, they’re yours and you’ll protect them with your life.

"At Manchester United we spent a lot of time with the staff, with the players, workshopping what behaviours are important, what values are important to you and we came up with five words as an acronym that spell out the word: BATON.

"We’re carrying the baton of Jimmy Murphy, one of the forefathers of youth development, go back to Munich. Matt Busby passed on the baton. We’ve got to be Brave, Adaptable, Together, Optimistic and the ‘N’ stood for nobody else but us and no other time but now."

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