The people Man United fans hate most of all are biggest winners from Sir Jim Ratcliffe cost-cutting

For a club that bragged of record revenues of £661.8millon in September, Manchester United stopping a £40,000-a-year payment to a charity looking after former players feels like something even Scrooge would have winced at.

That payment to the Association of Former Manchester United Players (AFMUP) amounts to just 0.006% of United's annual revenue, but there is no detail too small for Sir Jim Ratcliffe to look at as he tries to slash costs at a club losing money hand over fist.

Some of the measures certainly invite scrutiny as to just how bad the financial picture is at Old Trafford. Yes, this is a club that has lost money for five consecutive years, totalling more than £358m before tax, but does it really warrant stopping staff travel to an FA Cup final or reducing bonuses from £100 in cash to £40 Marks & Spencer gift cards?

Ratcliffe has already made 250 staff redundant and ended Sir Alex Ferguson's £2m-a-year ambassadorial contract. The decision to end the contract with the club's legendary former manager seems one of the more sensible measures.

The latest penny-pinching effort, cutting the funding to AFMUP without ever bothering to tell the trust they were doing so, has gone down predictably badly amongst a fan base already furious at the decision to hike the price of unsold tickets for the season to £66 while scrapping concessions.

It's a more difficult sell for Ratcliffe when the biggest expense at United is player wages, and so few of the squad are even coming close to earning their salary. Marcus Rashford is being paid £325,000-a-week not to play football, while Casemiro is getting a similar sum for sitting on the bench.

United have the second-highest wage bill in the Premier League and a team that is 14th on the