Sir Jim Ratcliffe has the money and drive to hire a Manchester United dream team

Manchester United were never going to issue a response to the Ineos spokesman who declared Sir Jim Ratcliffe's interest in buying the club on Wednesday night.

A club source brusquely referred to it as "speculation" when it is actually concrete. "If the club are for sale, Jim is definitely a potential buyer," the spokesman told The Times.

The news caused a tremor on Twitter. One United fan said he was "crying" at the news. Supporters need to be mindful of the Glazer family's ego and whether they are truly inclined to sell.

Also read: Ratcliffe will need more than wealth to end the Glazers' toxic ownership

There is safe distance between siblings Joel, Avram, Bryan, Darcie, Edward and Kevin - the Atlantic Ocean. They pocket their semi-annual dividend, the minority shareholders have minority voting rights and United's share price on the New York Stock Exchange has risen by 15% in the last week.

Twitter struggles to recognise sarcasm, as the irreverent Elon Musk discovered. We have seen how giddy Newcastle supporters got over a takeover, many effectively deifying the regime of Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. At least they got Chris Wood, though.

Mercifully, Manchester's two major football clubs almost certainly will not be under state ownership, although portions of United's fanbase lapped up largely baseless speculation that Saudi investors were circling. It would have been abhorrent had Manchester - the city that gave birth to suffragette pioneer Emmeline Pankhurst - rolled out the red carpet for a country where women were only permitted to drive less than three years ago.

Ratcliffe would be panacea; Failsworth-born, a boyhood United fan who was in Camp Nou in 1999 and who earned his first pocket money