Jonny Evans admits it has been hard for Manchester United’s players to see staff losing their jobs as part of the cost cutting by co-owners Ineos.

Up to 250 employees will be made redundant and many learned that they are at risk in a series of meetings the day before the squad left for a pre-season tour of the US last Wednesday. Others who were due to travel on the trip were stood down a week earlier.

Evans has a long association with United having spent 18 years at the club after joining when he was nine, and then returned to Old Trafford last summer aged 35.

His father Jackie was an academy coach at United, his brother Corry came through the youth ranks, and he met his wife Helen after she began working for the club’s in-house station MUTV 14 years ago.

So the veteran Northern Ireland defender can empathise with the issues many staff are facing at the moment, and said that his teammates have been talking about it during the club’s camp in Los Angeles.

Jonny Evans has revealed his sadness at seeing staff made redundant at Old Trafford

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Evans. ‘Certain staff members not being here. They're friends, people that they've worked with, colleagues for a long time, and I'm sure they'll be feeling that. There's no doubt about that.

‘As someone who’s been at the club – I had a spell away – but been at the club a long time, you know, a lot of people have lost their jobs this this last couple of weeks.

‘It's been hard and difficult to see. The new owners feel that’s the direction they want to go. But, you know, it's not been easy for everyone at the same time.

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‘I mean, there's people you’ve known for 20 years and I think the timing of it happened when we came away on tour pretty much.

‘So we were all a bit in the dark and I'm sure everything will be sorted out and things will be a bit more clear when we get back.

‘But it's been a difficult thing to see. (These are) people I've known for a long, long time. One thing about working in a club like Man United, you're all in and everyone's always been all in. It's a big, massive staff. But I think that's just been the culture of the club.

‘You have family members working there. People are married – my wife has been working at the club, my brother has been at the club, my dad's been at the club.

‘So it's always had that feeling of people. They give everything they have for the club and it’s such a huge credit to them. That's just because they love the place so much.

‘That's always been the beauty of the club. We've always had that connection with our staff.

‘I think the fact that the club is built on the academy also has a big part in that because players have been there for such a long time from a young age. They’ve come in and the academy players have always sort of set the culture, and the staff have been there the whole way through.

‘They promoted them through the club and people who work with the ticket office move through departments. So I think that's just been the nature of the culture, how it's always been built and it's huge plus for the club. We want to maintain that as much as possible.’

Evans, who signed a new one-year contract at United at the age of 36 this summer, has seen Ineos overhaul all aspects of the club since Sir Jim Ratcliffe made a £1.3billion at Christmas.

‘They've been very approachable and are always trying to make conversations,’ he added. ‘I'm sure they want to make connections with the players too.

‘There's so much upheaval at the club at the minute and they're still getting their foot in the door. I'm sure they want to put their own protocols in place and ways of doing things.

‘So there's a lot of things to be sorted still. I'm sure they’re excited for the season to start, but also looking forward to getting their own way of working.’