Did you think that Ralf would do a better job when he was appointed then Ole had been doing up until that point? Or did you feel he had no chance at all?
For example
I thought you could go further than 4th under Rangnick. you had a good run of fixtures coming up, and that there would be a few surprises for some teams over the winter periods. I didnt think you would be in the title conversation but you could touch 3rd or even 2nd at best.
I think if the players were buying into his philosophy there is little doubt we would go 4th or beyond.
The problem in my eyes is the squad have been used to a lack of coaching and very much a free pass in their work-rate under Ole. That's why even when he tried to get them to press high they looked even worse, almost as though they were revoluting against the idea - and thats when we saw such big thrashings. This set of players looked most comfortable in a set deep and counter approach because the underdog mentality suited them.
If you take either Shalke side that Ralf managed, RB Leipzig, Hoffenheim and simply look at their approach to the games together with how Ralf says he wants to set up his team, it is very evident that this United set of players are not listening to the instructions. Then one can say "you aren't on the training ground, what do you know etc." but it also correlates with reporters who
do have established links with the trainings or the dressing room etc. and these reporters are also saying that they don't listen to Ralf. And yet, we will have some imbecile posts just looking at resutls and lazily concluding Ralf is a poor manager or some fraud, which makes me laugh really.
In this instance the problem is beyond the manager, even if he loses every game we can't just point to him and say "blargh he's shite, can't even get his team to run". Rather the question is why are they ignoring him and what do other managers need to do differently to get them to listen? They didn't like the stern approach from Jose and spat him out. They spat out Ole's vibes and hi5s and these are permanent managers who were there to build something. A caretaker for 6 months has feck all chance in that regard, He has no backroom (he couldn't get any of his first choices to leave clubs and come for 6 months to United, hence only could choose free agents), he has no transfer budget and he has no influence to tell players
"hey I'm here for the long term as manager, buy into my way and you'll get used to it". Especially considering we have good 10 of these players from the matchday squad leaving the door next season.
If anything the contract situation means the players are
less likely to be bothered, not just because they have no vested interest in securing 4th, but more because they would rather not risk a serious injury from excessive work and harm a lucrative deal with their next clubs as a free agent. A lot of people are ignoring this, and I do think its a huge factor in the lack of effort in a fair few players who know they're on their way out. Lingard, Pogba, Matic, Cavani aren't immune to that for example. Of course then you have the likes of Telles who speaks about returning to Porto one day, Baily who feels hard done by for more gametime promises by Ole (not a Ralf issue, just Ole being incompetent), etc etc. This is more than enough to absolutely destroy any dressing room before we consider any interim performance from Ralf or hypothetically from whomever else was in the mix (Blanc / Fonseca or whoever).
