Time to stand by Rangnick

[tjb]

Re Moyes, if you were being very cynical you could say, Fergie never wanted anyone to be a real success after he left.

Also, he didn't join until July and had no communication with Woodward prior re transfers and it was a complete mess.

Moyes should have left Everton the moment he agreed to join and he has admitted that now.

Problem was, they carried on same approach with Giggs, LVG, Jose, Ole, Carrick and now Ralf.

I think by now, Sir Alex would want someone to come in and put the club back on top again.

Ironically, the biggest takeaway is how little thought was put into

Re Moyes, if you were being very cynical you could say, Fergie never wanted anyone to be a real success after he left.

Also, he didn't join until July and had no communication with Woodward prior re transfers and it was a complete mess.

Moyes should have left Everton the moment he agreed to join and he has admitted that now.

Problem was, they carried on same approach with Giggs, LVG, Jose, Ole, Carrick and now Ralf.

I think by now, Sir Alex would want someone to come in and put the club back on top again.

What's clear is that not much thought was put into the changes in the modern game or the importance of an actual coach. Of that list, Mourinho is the only decent choice kf manager we made. We could not have foreseen how washed up he ended up being.

Moyes never really has a style. He mentioned wanting to emulate Bayern and his defensive approach and lack of leadership skills showed in his dealing with Woodward.

LVG has not managed in club football for a while. His tactics weren't great in the 2014 world cup. He was responsible for letting Klopp's Dortmund catch Bayern and his football with Bayern wasn't great. We hired him for his work 20 years prior rather than what he was at the time. We hired him for a philosophy that he could no longer implement and had not implemented properly for a while.

We then tried to groom Giggs for the role despite him never showing signs of ever being a good manager or leader.

Solksjaer was hired interim. He had no clear tactical plan and was shown to be more of a man manager than an actual coach.

Ten years with 4 managers reaching lasting way too long at an average of 2.5 seasons, where only one had ever shown an form of recent tactical success ( Mourinho) prior to their arrival. In that time, City had Pellegrini (shown great tactics at Madrid and Malaga prior) and Pep. Chelsea had Mourinho, Conte, Sarri, Lampard ( one unproven manager) and Tuchel. Liverpool had Rodgers ( Swansea success) and Klopp.

 

[Revaulx]

This is an interesting analogy. The Doc inherited a bloated ageing squad including the Holy Trinity of Best, Charlton and Law and shipped them out together with under achievers such as Ted McDougall, Ian Storey Moore, Brian Kidd and Willie Morgan. Then replaced them with young hungry players like Steve Coppell, Gordon Hill, Lou Macari, Gerry Daly, Stuart Pearson and completely revitalised the team. After getting promoted back to Division 1 in the 1975/76 season we came 3rd and got to the FA Cup final.

I'm intrigued to see what Ralf could do with a pre season and a summer transfer window. If we get 4th place surely he deserves a chance?

Ian Storey Moore wasn’t an under achiever; he retired due to injury, which was very sad as he was a great player. Scored in his first three appearances for us, I think.

That aside, you’re spot on

 

[Nytram Shakes]

Any one who thought he was gonna come in and sort out 5+ years of awful coaching, 10+ years of awful squad building in a few months just wasn’t been realistic.

For me his job has always been coming in get the team performing as best as possible.

Then at the end of the season, give an expert informed opinion about state of the squad and make recommendations as to how things can be taken forward.

 

[GoldanoGraham]

Ralf is great at making out that he doesn't know what's going on down the line......trust me.....he certainly does and will be heavily involved with that process.......he is great at throwing out a smokescreen while structure, finally, is being put in place behind the scenes. Also, he will be compiling a fairly detailed and hopefully exhaustive dossier on the current squad of players, their strengths, weaknesses, and also where we need to strengthen and why.

I expect a fairly high churn out in the next few years of dross that we've been spoon-feeding goose fat and gold to for far too long and working with the new manager - that he will have significant input into their appointment to overhaul the squad to get us back into a much better position.

I also think that his interview post-match yesterday (Spurs) was top drawer.....I really like him, not necessarily as a permanent manager but definitely someone that is in this consultancy position with a voice to change.

 

[VidaRed]

 

[MrSingh2002]

What could Rangnick do with us next season if we sign a mobile, fast, composed centre back?

What could Rangnick do with 2 midfielders that can run, tackle AND pass?

What could he do with a striker in his prime?

I think he improves us alot with those players.

Henderson
Jones
Bailly
Matic
Fred
Pogba
Lingard
Mata
Cavani
Ronaldo

That's ALOT of players to potentially replace in the summer. Rangnick could finish the overhaul to the squad and there's no1 that I think could do a better job than him right now knowing what he knows about this squad and his technical knowledge on what he wants from the team.

Would be a massive shame if he wasn't allowed to heavily contribute towards the overhaul whether as manager or Director of Football. I think his opinions are perfect.

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

This thread will dramatically change if we get knocked out on Tuesday.

 

[Will Singh]

The only thing letting him down is the players and the fitness of some of them is embarrassing.

 

[MUFC OK]

Call me a skeptic but I the board will look at the Rangnick tenure and feel that he’s ruffled too many feathers, leaks have been plentiful, squad harmony as bad as ever and will want a complete departure in the summer.

Im sure 90% of us would like to see him work prominently with Ten Hag but the board will go for ‘nice guy’ Pochettino, the perfect puppet for the board who will win us nothing but be a good face for the club.

Rangnick/Ten Hag will demand a rebuild and cultural reset. Poch will be more of the same of the past 8 years. Don’t think we’ll hear much, if anything from Rangnick after this season, sadly.

 

[SER19]

The beauty of him is that I think he can oversee a rebuild without drawing mountains of media stress and attention to even big issues. The way he's handled pogba and rashford rumours has been so composed and made the club look bigger than both by far. The Greenwood issue, the Ronaldo question, the 'dressing room division'. He's in charge of a bloody mess at the moment and doing well. Id love to see him in charge of a summer transfer window and what he can do after it

 

[Green Arrow]

Call me a skeptic but I the board will look at the Rangnick tenure and feel that he’s ruffled too many feathers, leaks have been plentiful, squad harmony as bad as ever and will want a complete departure in the summer.

Im sure 90% of us would like to see him work prominently with Ten Hag but the board will go for ‘nice guy’ Pochettino, the perfect puppet for the board who will win us nothing but be a good face for the club.

Rangnick/Ten Hag will demand a rebuild and cultural reset. Poch will be more of the same of the past 8 years. Don’t think we’ll hear much, if anything from Rangnick after this season, sadly.

Yeah I agree with this too, Rangnick/Ten Hag would work well together I think, Ten Hag will have someone to liaise with when getting rid of players and bringing them in. If we do get him he will have a head start on the players attitudes because Rangnick will have told of who to keep and who to sell. I guess the owners know that and won't want that to happen too much money to spend. Hence will go with nice guy Pochettino keep mediocre players and promote youth and we'll be fighting for top 4 again next season.

 

[RoyH1]

The beauty of him is that I think he can oversee a rebuild without drawing mountains of media stress and attention to even big issues. The way he's handled pogba and rashford rumours has been so composed and made the club look bigger than both by far. The Greenwood issue, the Ronaldo question, the 'dressing room division'. He's in charge of a bloody mess at the moment and doing well. Id love to see him in charge of a summer transfer window and what he can do after it

Agree. He's a steady hand and I think he'll transition very well to being a head of football figure for us.

 

[MUFC OK]

Yeah I agree with this too, Rangnick/Ten Hag would work well together I think, Ten Hag will have someone to liaise with when getting rid of players and bringing them in. If we do get him he will have a head start on the players attitudes because Rangnick will have told of who to keep and who to sell. I guess the owners know that and won't want that to happen too much money to spend. Hence will go with nice guy Pochettino keep mediocre players and promote youth and we'll be fighting for top 4 again next season.

We're so close to stumbling on the kind of structure we need, i.e. Ten Hag/Rangnick working closely together and the opportunity to build a team with a clear identity, a system and with the best chance of competing for top honours given time.

Poch will try to make it work with this group again and might get us a couple of top 4 finishes, but we will never challenge the likes of City/Pool (one of whom may go for Ten Hag themselves). It's excruciating to see how this is going to unfold but the Poch thing feels inevitable, the Rangnick period will be confined to history and the cycle continues - 4 years on an we'll be no closer to an identity, no closer to a PL title, still massaging the ego's of Rashford's, Shaw's, Maguire's etc. This really is a pivotal moment in our modern history, praying we get this right but fully expecting us not to.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

Ralf is great at making out that he doesn't know what's going on down the line......trust me.....he certainly does and will be heavily involved with that process.......he is great at throwing out a smokescreen while structure, finally, is being put in place behind the scenes. Also, he will be compiling a fairly detailed and hopefully exhaustive dossier on the current squad of players, their strengths, weaknesses, and also where we need to strengthen and why.

I expect a fairly high churn out in the next few years of dross that we've been spoon-feeding goose fat and gold to for far too long and working with the new manager - that he will have significant input into their appointment to overhaul the squad to get us back into a much better position.

I also think that his interview post-match yesterday (Spurs) was top drawer.....I really like him, not necessarily as a permanent manager but definitely someone that is in this consultancy position with a voice to change.

Trust you? you sitting in on the board meetings?

 

[wolvored]

I thought it was a bit sad that two players that have thrown strop from not being in the side last week in rashford and ronaldo, that they were afforded a starting place despite their poor behaviour, it doesn't sent a good message for the squad taking ragnick seriously

Yes agree. Hope it was RR that put them back in and not been told by the board they must play.

 

[wolvored]

If Rangnick can get us 90m combined for both of them, they should name a stand in Old Trafford after him.

If he can get a further 100m from selling Maguire, Jones, Bailly and AWB, we should just rename the club after him.

It'll be a bloody miracle.

I was laughing at that as well.

 

[Green Arrow]

We're so close to stumbling on the kind of structure we need, i.e. Ten Hag/Rangnick working closely together and the opportunity to build a team with a clear identity, a system and with the best chance of competing for top honours given time.

Poch will try to make it work with this group again and might get us a couple of top 4 finishes, but we will never challenge the likes of City/Pool (one of whom may go for Ten Hag themselves). It's excruciating to see how this is going to unfold but the Poch thing feels inevitable, the Rangnick period will be confined to history and the cycle continues - 4 years on an we'll be no closer to an identity, no closer to a PL title, still massaging the ego's of Rashford's, Shaw's, Maguire's etc. This really is a pivotal moment in our modern history, praying we get this right but fully expecting us not to.

We haven't had a clear identity since SAF yes you could say about Van Gaal, Mourinho and Ole but that didn't work out at all. With Ten Hag/Rangnick I can see that they will set out their vision and I'm sure there will be bumps in the road but we will get there with these two.

With Pochettino you're right he will massage the egos of the english core, he won't strip Maguire of the captancy even though we can all see that he is not up to the task. He won't drop Rashford becuase he's been absouluty rubbish for a year now, he won't even sell him the owners will never allow that as he's their poster boy.

I think Klopp said he will leave when his current contract expires same with Pep, I can see either City or Liverpool going for Ten Hag if we don't get him. When he hits the ground running at those clubs (He might not and fail) we'll be scratching our heads why we didn't get him, it'll be down to the owners. This endless cycle will never end then 3/4 years time he will be sacked and we'll start all over again.

I've resigned myself to the fact we'll go for the guy who has been sacked twice (hopefully PSG keep him) by clubs and has been knocked out in the CL, who is a nice guy won't cause a fuss and will be free agent soon. Just the kind of manager the owners want.

 

[Daengophile]

I don't understand why he wasn't given cash to strengthen this January. Bizarre.

The only positive thing I can think of is that the club wanted a bit of a clear out and to hold money back for the incoming manager

 

[MUFC OK]

I've resigned myself to the fact we'll go for the guy who has been sacked twice (hopefully PSG keep him) by clubs and has been knocked out in the CL, who is a nice guy won't cause a fuss and will be free agent soon. Just the kind of manager the owners want.

Any chance of that was gone with the CL exit - to our board that won't matter one iota. They are capable of using any twisted logic to justify their end game - very Machiavellian. There is talk of a 'gentleman's agreement' that has been in place for some time.

Rangnick feels like a departure from the past, the lack of planning, lack of footballing decisions which is why I want him to stay on in a prominent role. Regardless, I can't see our fans giving Poch much time considering the resentment around his appointment already, it would just feel like more of the same - pretending everything is okay and prioritising non-footballing aspects. Let's wait and see though..

 

[Green Arrow]

Any chance of that was gone with the CL exit - to our board that won't matter one iota. They are capable of using any twisted logic to justify their end game - very Machiavellian. There is talk of a 'gentleman's agreement' that has been in place for some time.

Rangnick feels like a departure from the past, the lack of planning, lack of footballing decisions which is why I want him to stay on in a prominent role. Regardless, I can't see our fans giving Poch much time considering the resentment around his appointment already, it would just feel like more of the same - pretending everything is okay and prioritising non-footballing aspects. Let's wait and see though..

It's typical of this club to have a 'gentleman's agreement' through a previous CEO who no longer works at the club, why would you even take his advice is beyond me.

Rangnick would be brilliant in his consultancy role he would make us a modern football club. I agree our fans will turn very quickly on him and I don't want him already. Agree let's wait and see.

 

[BigRon1985]

Ian Storey Moore wasn’t an under achiever; he retired due to injury, which was very sad as he was a great player. Scored in his first three appearances for us, I think.

That aside, you’re spot on

Yes you're right I forgot he retired - apologies to Ian! I seem to remember him carrying on in non-league football after he left United?

 

[Bestietom]

The club didn't help him by not bringing in a DM in January, but he is steering the ship well and not afraid to speak his mind. Hope he shakes the board up when he moves up in the summer. We have to get on the right track.

 

[Revaulx]

Yes you're right I forgot he retired - apologies to Ian! I seem to remember him carrying on in non-league football after he left United?

Player manager at both Burton Albion and Shepshed Charterhouse. I remember the latter mainly because of its, er, unusual name

Despite being a crock and playing in a really crap side, he managed 11 goals in 39 games for us.

 

[RopersReturn]

Never doubted RR, especially when you consider that he’s pretty much on a technical reconnaissance mission to report his findings at the end of the season.

In view of this, some of the players really haven’t helped themselves and must surely be weeded out in due course.

 

[romufc]

Even if we go out of the CL, I will support RR. He has a method, he has a vision, he knows what a top team should play like.

We play shit, he wont sugar coat it, he talks really well which comes across to me as someone who understands what he is doing.

He is not taking shit of anyone, Rashford wants to leave he said wait till the summer then leave.

So its clear he knows who he needs to build the team around, which players are good enough and which ones will need replacing.

 

[Revaulx]

Call me a skeptic but I the board will look at the Rangnick tenure and feel that he’s ruffled too many feathers, leaks have been plentiful, squad harmony as bad as ever and will want a complete departure in the summer.

Im sure 90% of us would like to see him work prominently with Ten Hag but the board will go for ‘nice guy’ Pochettino, the perfect puppet for the board who will win us nothing but be a good face for the club.

Rangnick/Ten Hag will demand a rebuild and cultural reset. Poch will be more of the same of the past 8 years. Don’t think we’ll hear much, if anything from Rangnick after this season, sadly.

The beauty of him is that I think he can oversee a rebuild without drawing mountains of media stress and attention to even big issues. The way he's handled pogba and rashford rumours has been so composed and made the club look bigger than both by far. The Greenwood issue, the Ronaldo question, the 'dressing room division'. He's in charge of a bloody mess at the moment and doing well. Id love to see him in charge of a summer transfer window and what he can do after it

An interesting pair of contrasting takes here

I rather think that the Board will actually be enjoying Ralfs mixture of candour (which keeps the club in the spotlight) and tact (which seems to have drawn said spotlight away from the club when bad things have happened). The social media team certainly love him, as he’s massively more quoteable than Ole had become in his latter days. Surely they wouldn’t be pushing him so hard if they didn’t like what he was doing?

 

[RopersReturn]

Ironically, the biggest takeaway is how little thought was put into

What's clear is that not much thought was put into the changes in the modern game or the importance of an actual coach. Of that list, Mourinho is the only decent choice kf manager we made. We could not have foreseen how washed up he ended up being.

Moyes never really has a style. He mentioned wanting to emulate Bayern and his defensive approach and lack of leadership skills showed in his dealing with Woodward.

LVG has not managed in club football for a while. His tactics weren't great in the 2014 world cup. He was responsible for letting Klopp's Dortmund catch Bayern and his football with Bayern wasn't great. We hired him for his work 20 years prior rather than what he was at the time. We hired him for a philosophy that he could no longer implement and had not implemented properly for a while.

We then tried to groom Giggs for the role despite him never showing signs of ever being a good manager or leader.

Solksjaer was hired interim. He had no clear tactical plan and was shown to be more of a man manager than an actual coach.

Ten years with 4 managers reaching lasting way too long at an average of 2.5 seasons, where only one had ever shown an form of recent tactical success ( Mourinho) prior to their arrival. In that time, City had Pellegrini (shown great tactics at Madrid and Malaga prior) and Pep. Chelsea had Mourinho, Conte, Sarri, Lampard ( one unproven manager) and Tuchel. Liverpool had Rodgers ( Swansea success) and Klopp.

In retrospect I think we’d stillhave been in a better place had we held on with LvG.

Whilst Mourinho’s appointment was questionable, Ole’s was simply reckless.

 

[Yakuza_devils]

What can you do when you come into a team which have the worst fitness in the PL mid season? Basically, RR has only 45 mins to win any game. After 45 mins, players cant run anymore.

Had he step into a team with much better fitness the results will be much different as well.

The alternative is to play defensive counter attacking football to suit our lazy players. Is this what we want for long term as the biggest club in the world?

 

[fastwalker]

Re Moyes, if you were being very cynical you could say, Fergie never wanted anyone to be a real success after he left.

Also, he didn't join until July and had no communication with Woodward prior re transfers and it was a complete mess.

Moyes should have left Everton the moment he agreed to join and he has admitted that now.

Problem was, they carried on same approach with Giggs, LVG, Jose, Ole, Carrick and now Ralf.

I think by now, Sir Alex would want someone to come in and put the club back on top again.

Hahaha wash your mouth out 'choccy'.

On a serious note your summary only goes to underline what a complete and total dogs dinner management recruitment at United has been.

 

[choccy77]

I have zero confidence in the club, but I believe getting

Hahaha wash your mouth out 'choccy'.

On a serious note your summary only goes to underline what a complete and total dogs dinner management recruitment at United has been.

Well, the club have form historically, even after Busby left they made a mess of everything.

Hopefully now, the new CEO doesn't have a huge ego like Woodward and he puts the teams best interest first.

I hope they sign Hag and give him the time to build.

The club is behind in so many ways, it needs a full build up from the bottom, our standards have slipped in so many areas.

 

[romufc]

What can you do when you come into a team which have the worst fitness in the PL mid season? Basically, RR has only 45 mins to win any game. After 45 mins, players cant run anymore.

Had he step into a team with much better fitness the results will be much different as well.

The alternative is to play defensive counter attacking football to suit our lazy players. Is this what we want for long term as the biggest club in the world?

excuses, excuses, excuses.

He's had 3 plus months with the squad, the fitness has not changed.

 

[Corridor of Uncertainty]

excuses, excuses, excuses.

He's had 3 plus months with the squad, the fitness has not changed.

Fitness is built up in pre-season, and then maintained through the season.

You don't come in half way through the season and put the players through an intensive fitness routine, not when games are coming every few days where recovery time is already short. How much time do you think we have in between games that isn't taken up by other things?

 

[Yakuza_devils]

excuses, excuses, excuses.

He's had 3 plus months with the squad, the fitness has not changed.

You can't improve your fitness drastically in mid season while competing in a demanding professional league. It has to be done during 2 months pre season.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Once again, people are blurring the lines between an interim and a long term backroom position like a DoF. The interim's job is usually to steady the ship and reach certain objectives, like top 4. I doubt the board agreed to 'give up' the season in order to let him assess the squad, whatever that means. We don't even know if he how big of a role he will play in building the squad next season.

Also, it is literally an interim's job to step into a mess and try to salvage it. I've never heard of an interim stepping into a great environment, because if things were going so great, the previous manager would not have been sacked mid season. From the posts in here you'd think Rangnick is the only interim to ever step into a mess, and that it's an impossible job, etc etc.

 

[romufc]

Fitness is built up in pre-season, and then maintained through the season.

You don't come in half way through the season and put the players through an intensive fitness routine, not when games are coming every few days where recovery time is already short. How much time do you think we have in between games that isn't taken up by other things?

You can't improve your fitness drastically in mid season while competing in a demanding professional league. It has to be done during 2 months pre season.

If you cannot improve fitness during a season, how do players who are injured come back to full fitness during a season?

Its like we had 0 fitness levels and Ralf wants 100. We have had 2 weeks off in Jan, last few weeks we played 1 game a week.

Also, Pre season isn't 2 months. They come back in July, the season starts in August.

 

[BusbyMalone]

Welcome to football, Ralf

 

[ants7]

The club didn't help him by not bringing in a DM in January, but he is steering the ship well and not afraid to speak his mind. Hope he shakes the board up when he moves up in the summer. We have to get on the right track.

This. I think the fact that he has had no support from the board is often overlooked. The very least the board could have done was to bring in a DM (we need one anyway) and we might be seeing much different results (specially against weaker teams where we've lost terrible amount of points this season). With all other managers we gave 1-2 windows to sort the squad but Rangnick has zero players of his own choice.

 

[Corridor of Uncertainty]

If you cannot improve fitness during a season, how do players who are injured come back to full fitness during a season?

Its like we had 0 fitness levels and Ralf wants 100. We have had 2 weeks off in Jan, last few weeks we played 1 game a week.

Also, Pre season isn't 2 months. They come back in July, the season starts in August.

What has that got to do with anything? Players who are injured can take weeks to get back to 'full fitness', through fitness drills and getting more match practice. Do we have weeks in between games?

Klopp went through the same thing when he joined mid season. You can't put a whole team on a fitness routine when the majority of time spent in between games is already spent on making sure players are sufficiently recovered from the last match.

There's also the issue of injuries occuring from an increased work load. We're already light in numbers as it is.

Not rocket science.

 

[UpWithRivers]

Once again, people are blurring the lines between an interim and a long term backroom position like a DoF. The interim's job is usually to steady the ship and reach certain objectives, like top 4. I doubt the board agreed to 'give up' the season in order to let him assess the squad, whatever that means. We don't even know if he how big of a role he will play in building the squad next season.

Also, it is literally an interim's job to step into a mess and try to salvage it. I've never heard of an interim stepping into a great environment, because if things were going so great, the previous manager would not have been sacked mid season. From the posts in here you'd think Rangnick is the only interim to ever step into a mess, and that it's an impossible job, etc etc.

There is steadying a ship that needs a new sail and there is a steadying a ship that hit an iceberg and the crew are all pissed and passed out. I dont understand why people dont understand this. Name a top club that has ever been in a worse position when the interim manager came in. The fkrs refuse to run! Simply run! Downed tools. Gave up. Cant be bothered. Beat up their girlfriends. Abandoned ship. Quit. Picked the cowards way. Worst state United has ever been in. Ever. Yeah we got relegated but ask the old timers and they will tell you the team at least tried.

 

[Kopral Jono]

Rangnick's command of the English language is really the most underrated aspect of him. He tells things how they are with a certain clarity and resonance, avoiding unnecessary controversy in the process.