Our board has put Ralf in a difficult situation when they decided not to back him in Jan window. Players have smelt blood and are out to undermine him in the press in whatever way they can.
At that point they wrote the season off and fed Ralf to the wolves. He's already been managing the club with his hands tied behind his back with both the club hierarchy and players have consistently undermined him by the flow of leaks, rebutting his statements with martial tweeting that he did not refuse to play, lingard saying he didn't ask for leave and now Rashford coming out that he feels bemused that he isn't selected. Not to mention refusing to get him a midfielder so he's stuck with Matic fred, and Mctominay as potential CDMs when we could have bought in a cheap no risk option with potential sell on value in Zakaria for 5million. Refusing to sell/loan Lingard after Ralf had given him his blessing to leave forced to stay just underminded him further. I'm not in the camp that Ralf should be permanent manager as I dont think management is his forte, I see him more as a director of football consultant. Neither do I think he's doing a good or poor job, what I think he is that he's doing his best with what he's got and any manager in the same situation would be struggling to handle this situation with both the board and the players. Ralf hasn’t been given the respect by the players or the board. The first two weeks he took over there were complaints about his training methods about players having to go home in the dark. The board have neither respected him enough to use his expertise to consult him on who the next manager will be, the board are not taking on board what ralf has to say on recruitment refusing to take advatange of his vast knowledge of young players across Europe.
The purpose of Ralf's role was to bring his own expertise from his experience of rebuilding clubs like RB Leipzig. He did not only rebuild their team but the club from the ground up putting proper football structures in place. How can you do that when he is constantly being poisoned with advice from the remnants of the old regime that lived in the past
This all stems from the previous regime, where we had a socalled manager who was more concerned with being mates with the players and creating nicknames for them. Allowing them to turn up late at training without any reprimands, mollycoddling and messaging their egos giving them monster contracts and treating academy players as untouchables. Refusing to hold his favourites accountable by having them always play in spite of sub par and embarrassing nature of performances and defeats. The manage would always reel himself out and come out at every post match interview and tell us how great all these 'lads were'', ''the boys will bounce back'', he said ''' top professionals'' he said. incredible people, world class coaches he said he had beside him. Some of them having to sacrifice time away from their families to work for Manchester United we heard. We had and still have Mike Phelan who was training little kids in Australia after rightfully getting sacked from Hull brought back to be assistent manager at one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Then you have Darren Fletcher who was taking up his coaching badges at Stoke City the only place that would take him on for space, brought to the club based on nothing but being a former player and promoted as techinical director by the previous manager and is now masquerading as a coach, assistent manager and techincal director all rolled into one. What has this guy achieved in the footballing world behind the scenes? Then we have Mckenna who also brought in his uni mate as a free kick coach. All of these people were having a jolly whilst learning on the job. We've got this amateur Fletcher giving Ralf Rangnick orders on the touchline and no doubt has a bigger say on recruitment when he's qualified for nothing. Lets not forget for some weird reason Ralf had a 90 minute phone call with Ole no doubt advised through the club to do so. What club tells it's new manager, or interim to speak to the previous failed manager. Can you imagine Conte having to speaking with Nuno Santo after he failed miserably at Spurs?
Ralf's job and what we as fans expect of him was to bring an Identity and a system to United. What people naively expected is that such a transformation should take place within 4-6 months when Ralf has a history rebuilding the foundations of a club from bottom to top over a period of 4-5 years. And he does that without having strings attached to his back from all angles without a confused board on what direction it wants to go in. Not go into a management job mid season,Without a pre season, without his own players, without his own coaches, straddled with overpaid entitled players who can go over his head and complain to board members and think all they have to do is turn up and teams will roll over because they play for manchester United
You can't undo an insidious toxic entitled culture that has been left to fester since the days of Mourinho - who tried to oust some of these overrated players within the club but got demonised. Not mid-way through a season especially considering the mess we were left in after Ole's calamitous reign which has set the club back a century back into the dark ages where the players rule and decide how things are run. This is clearly affecting Ralf and is going to affect the new manager. Ole's decision alone to make Maguire captain without him proving anything at the club, is still costing the team points even after he is gone. Now a new manager cannot drop Maguire without creating a big scene not to mention is now more or less unsellable, We have Rashford who turned into a spoilt brat under Ole who now can't believe United have the audacity to drop him. The midfield was neglected for years in favour of star studded attacking signings has left us in the lurch where fred and mctominay are supposedly the spine of the team. These two hacks wouldn't make the grade at Burnley but Ralf has to work with them
We were sold this United DNA way fairytale which was like a Make America Great Again campaign on steroids for some fans where we were constantly told about cultural reboot, united dna, attacking football etc etc. When in reality all it was a ruse to give Ole time in hope just like the academy players that wth simply time alone he would come good and turn out to be the new Sir Alex. In the end it became about who could remind us all and call Ole a legend the most times to come out as the bigger fan because he represented what they thought was the old ethos of United, when in reality his football was all about self self perseverance, favouritism and keeping hold of his dream job at all costs while neglecting more nuanced aspects of management which has then manifested itself as the club become a breeding ground for spoilt overpaid mercenaries who are more concerned with their brand/image and whether they get the headlines for being the diffference maker in the games.
The icing on the cake was when after that joke of a manager was reeled out after being sacked as if he was some martyr who had sacrificed himself for the good of the club when he should have done the decent thing and resignd long ago. Ole and his leftover groupies still have the nerve to insinuate that he left the club in a healthy state and better than when he arrived when it's in fact it's set it back years because we're stuck with players on big contracts who no one will want and then will be left with passion merchants and big time charlies acting like Billy Big bollocks on the pitch like Maguire, Rashford and Scott Mctominay thinking and believing they represent the core and heart of Manchester United.