Would you take Ralf Rangnick as manager?

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You definitely questioned his competence and you also questioned his past experiences in jobs that are linked to being a DOF since he was a data analyst. Now on your last point, he definitely hasn't been put in an ideal position to succeed, chiefly because he has to shape his own role instead of having one that is well defined by the club but we can kind of take comfort in the fact that it has been the case since 2013, his previous role was also poorly defined, I assume that it was the case for @Adnan but it took me a bit of time to understand what was expected from him.
What I'm hoping will happen once we replace Solskjaer is that we replace him with a head coach, which will make the head coach accountable to John Murtough. And if that happens, then we will judge Murtough and the rest of the recruitment department when it comes to the now and mid-term. But from what I've read and heard via podcasts, Murtough has done a very good job in creating the scouting and data science departments that have between 80 to 100 people working in various different divisions with figure heads above them, who now report to Murtough. And those people are very experienced people like Jim Lawlor and Mick Court who were at the club when we were successful under Fergie. Marcel Bout and Henny de Regt who have vast European experience at Bayern and Ajax. So for me it's important we remain patient with these guys and then judge them once they have selected a head coach to implement the vision that has been spoken about.
 
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What I'm hoping will happen once we replace Solskjaer is that we replace him with a head coach, which will make the head coach accountable to John Murtough. And if that happens, then we will judge Murtough and the rest of the recruitment department when it comes to the now and mid-term. But from what I've read and heard via podcasts, Murtough has done a very good job in creating the scouting and data science departments that have between 80 to 100 people working in various different divisions with figure heads above them, who now report to Murtough. And those people are very experienced people like Jim Lawlor and Mick Court who were at the club when we were successful under Fergie. Marcel Bout and Henny de Regt who have vast European experience at Bayern and Ajax. So for me it's important we remain patient with these guys and then judge them once they have selected a head coach to implement the vision that has been spoken about.

Nail on the head.
 
What I'm hoping will happen once we replace Solskjaer is that we replace him with a head coach, which will make the head coach accountable to John Murtough. And if that happens, then we will judge Murtough and the rest of the recruitment department when it comes to the now and mid-term. But from what I've read and heard via podcasts, Murtough has done a very good job in creating the scouting and data science departments that have between 80 to 100 people working in various different divisions with figure heads above them, who now report to Murtough. And those people are very experienced people like Jim Lawlor and Mick Court who were at the club when we were successful under Fergie. Marcel Bout and Henny de Regt who have vast European experience at Bayern and Ajax. So for me it's important we remain patient with these guys and then judge them once they have selected a head coach to implement the vision that has been spoken about.

That's how I see it. The situation is probably awkward due to the recency of the new structure, Ole's replacement is likely to be hired as an head coach which will put Murtough in a normal place for a DOF.
 
I just can't see Rangnick coming in just as interim without being able to do his thing, which is to be very, very overbearing.
While he's definitively hopelessly desperate to get a big name job under his belt at the end of his career, and might make huge compromises for that, he won't be able to change his nature and surely won't be able to fool the board about it (let's just sink in for a second that the guy has just taken over the DoF post of Lokomotiv Moscow in summer and yet has his agent telling journos how interested he is in Man United..)

And as mere interims, there's a lot of other decent candidates who don't have the drive to inject themselves in the whole club's running.

But first of all, the important thing is to get the next permanent appointment right, and that's probably more likely to happen in summer (if we are talking about Pochettino, Potter, or even Ten Hag who I really hope doesn't end up at your club).
And then the question is, do you really need to sack Solskjaer and appoint an interim, or can Solskjaer do an alright job until summer as he has done so far?
Losing to Liverpool and City, the way you did, might be reason to upgrade on him in general, but not necessarily to sack him outright - an immediate sacking would be necessary if results are bad and are plummeting against worse teams, no? I don't think any incoming caretaker could be expected to beat Liverpool at Anfield, to put it like that.

As caretakers if must be, Dean Smith is just available and surely a capable manager, Favre is free and is very good in his first season at a new club, how about Laurent Blanc?
Out of interest, why do you hope Ten Hag doesn't end up at Utd?
 
I just can't see Rangnick coming in just as interim without being able to do his thing, which is to be very, very overbearing.
While he's definitively hopelessly desperate to get a big name job under his belt at the end of his career, and might make huge compromises for that, he won't be able to change his nature and surely won't be able to fool the board about it (let's just sink in for a second that the guy has just taken over the DoF post of Lokomotiv Moscow in summer and yet has his agent telling journos how interested he is in Man United..)

And as mere interims, there's a lot of other decent candidates who don't have the drive to inject themselves in the whole club's running.

But first of all, the important thing is to get the next permanent appointment right, and that's probably more likely to happen in summer (if we are talking about Pochettino, Potter, or even Ten Hag who I really hope doesn't end up at your club).
And then the question is, do you really need to sack Solskjaer and appoint an interim, or can Solskjaer do an alright job until summer as he has done so far?
Losing to Liverpool and City, the way you did, might be reason to upgrade on him in general, but not necessarily to sack him outright - an immediate sacking would be necessary if results are bad and are plummeting against worse teams, no? I don't think any incoming caretaker could be expected to beat Liverpool at Anfield, to put it like that.

As caretakers if must be, Dean Smith is just available and surely a capable manager, Favre is free and is very good in his first season at a new club, how about Laurent Blanc?
I don’t mind someone imposing their vision as long as it’s in line with the fairly basic premise that United will always have: to play attacking football and to develop youth team players and give them opportunities in the first team. I don’t see how Rangnick would be at odds with this approach.

I like the idea of Laurent Blanc until the end of the season but there’s next to no indication that it could happen.

Ideally we would appoint Rangnick now and allow him to move upstairs into either DoF or head of youth development in the summer and appoint Ten Haag as the permanent boss. That is the approach that the vast vast majority of United fans would want to see and would fit with our philosophy as a club.
 
Out of interest, why do you hope Ten Hag doesn't end up at Utd?
Because he’s the best available manager and would have us consistently competing for the PL/CL and playing attractive football over the next 5 years?
 
Because he’s the best available manager and would have us consistently competing for the PL/CL and playing attractive football over the next 5 years?
That's why I asked, strange a Bayern fan saying it, probably wants a free run at him when Naggelsman leaves!
 
That's why I asked, strange a Bayern fan saying it, probably wants a free run at him when Naggelsman leaves!
I don't think Bayern fans have much affinity towards us to be honest. In fact fans of all top clubs in europe know when have a squad that is basically ready to compete with the right manager and a couple of additions (cdm, rb), so another incompetent manager would be their preference.
 
I don't think Bayern fans have much affinity towards us to be honest. In fact fans of all top clubs in europe know when have a squad that is basically ready to compete with the right manager and a couple of additions (cdm, rb), so another incompetent manager would be their preference.
Yeah your right.
 
How does everyone we hire be so highly rated yet so poor at their jobs? Mckenna was a highly rated coach, can't actually coach anything if you watch our team but he is highly rated. Everyone keeps talking about Murtough's work with the youth setup, yet we have 0 actual youth players he's signed anywhere near our first team. Murtough's job has everything to do with woodward, would murtough have a dof job if he wasn't at utd? would any experienced DOF accept a job where he has no say in who the next manager would be. Normally a manager is answerable to the DOF here they seem to be working parallel to each other would an overmars or rangnick accept this power structure?
They're highly rated by people within United. And this club is a dinosaur. Ask other clubs outside of England to rate McKenna the most they'd say is "he is alright" or "never heard of him". Like it or not United is living in a bubble when it comes into coaches. It's why you see fans still talking about Phelan, Rene and Queiroz. When you talk about DoF they will say Edwin (who is very good) but yeah it's always about bringing somebody from the club's past. I wouldn't take Ralf, might as well gamble with younger managers. At least that'd change things up a little bit. We dont need another dinosaur.
 
I don't understand why so many of you think it is a good idea?

First of all, Rangnick would, barring a major and fundamental upheaval in the leadership of your club, not get the position and authority he is used to having and wants. Posters keep saying "hire him and then move him to DoF", well, you already have a DoF. Newly appointed. Who's going to fire that one to put Rangnick in his place? The guys who newly appointed him? Makes no sense.

Secondly, why do you believe his skillset is what's needed at Manchster United? You are not a third or fourth division club that can be made from scratch, with no history, or weight of expectation, or identity to frame the scope of his vision.
You don't need to be built from the ground up, using strict strategic measures like only buying U23 players with an internal salary cap of 3m per year (~50k per week), like he did at Leipzig. How is the situation at Man United in any way comparable? You have Pogba, Cavani, fecking Ronaldo, for christ's sake. You need a manager who can coach a team full of superstars and get them winning at the highest level. That's not Rangnick's specialty at all.

Connected to that is the fact that he's not even really been working as a manager, in the sense of coaching a team. He's done it at times, and when he's done it he indeed was pretty good at it. But still, the vast majority of his time in the last decade was spent in boardrooms instead of dressing rooms.

I get that many of you are yearning for fundamental change and some kind of methodical reform, but honestly Rangnick sounds more like a bad idea than a good one to me.
Spot on. He’s not the guy we want or need. If Murtough was gone, he’d be great but that’s a completely different role.

We need a hands on head coach, anyone who can’t see this needs to start watching way more football.
 
Irrelevant what we think. There’s no intention to bring in an interim at all. The only permanent manager they’ll consider is poch or Rodgers so we might as well close the Ten Haag thread as well as this one.
 
Very much actually. Might be the most entertaining I've seen us play.

That's what I thought. Wouldn't you expect a Bayern-supporting manager at his age to be with you for a long while? Strange to be holding out for ten Hag when you've already got the up and coming manager in Europe.
 
That's what I thought. Wouldn't you expect a Bayern-supporting manager at his age to be with you for a long while? Strange to be holding out for ten Hag when you've already got the up and coming manager in Europe.
There is always the possibility that it goes horribly wrong. Bayern would act swiftly in that case, and ten Hag will be on their shortlist (again). @Hansi Fick is just demonstrating elite club mindset here.
 
I just can't see Rangnick coming in just as interim without being able to do his thing, which is to be very, very overbearing.
While he's definitively hopelessly desperate to get a big name job under his belt at the end of his career, and might make huge compromises for that, he won't be able to change his nature and surely won't be able to fool the board about it (let's just sink in for a second that the guy has just taken over the DoF post of Lokomotiv Moscow in summer and yet has his agent telling journos how interested he is in Man United..)

And as mere interims, there's a lot of other decent candidates who don't have the drive to inject themselves in the whole club's running.

But first of all, the important thing is to get the next permanent appointment right, and that's probably more likely to happen in summer (if we are talking about Pochettino, Potter, or even Ten Hag who I really hope doesn't end up at your club).
And then the question is, do you really need to sack Solskjaer and appoint an interim, or can Solskjaer do an alright job until summer as he has done so far?
Losing to Liverpool and City, the way you did, might be reason to upgrade on him in general, but not necessarily to sack him outright - an immediate sacking would be necessary if results are bad and are plummeting against worse teams, no? I don't think any incoming caretaker could be expected to beat Liverpool at Anfield, to put it like that.

As caretakers if must be, Dean Smith is just available and surely a capable manager, Favre is free and is very good in his first season at a new club, how about Laurent Blanc?
Well, difference is you have watched us only against City and Pool, but we have been embarrassingly bad for months now. All of the CL wins has been late wins or draws, PL matches has been worse starting from Southampton, Wolves, Everton and Villa.
 
If not Rangnick, I would take Favre as a caretaker manager, and then target permanent targets in the summer. Favre is a competent coach atleast, but I dont expect the board to have such rational plans.
 
That's what I thought. Wouldn't you expect a Bayern-supporting manager at his age to be with you for a long while? Strange to be holding out for ten Hag when you've already got the up and coming manager in Europe.
There is always the possibility that it goes horribly wrong. Bayern would act swiftly in that case, and ten Hag will be on their shortlist (again). @Hansi Fick is just demonstrating elite club mindset here.
I expect Nagelsmann, who is fantastic, to be with us for a few years. I don't see it going horribly wrong and I wouldn't want to swap him for anyone.
That doesn't negate the fact that the average managerial spell for us is about two years and a bit and so we are always in need for excellent candidates. Even managers who do brilliant move on at some point. There's cycles.

Ten Hag, due to his style of football, record at Ajax, and past affiliation with the club, is a top candidate to manage us whenever we would need someone. Apart from that, I like him, I also have a soft spot for Arsenal, I wouldn't begrudge Arsenal if they got him. It would also stylistically be a great fit and a potentially great match for both.

The other top clubs, please get someone else.
Utd can have Pochettino for all I care, Juve can have Zidane, or vice versa, Barca can have Xavi, City can have, I don't know, Lopetegui, Luis Enrique, Pirlo, or Tito Vilanova's ghost, thank you very much.
 
I have a feeling Liverpool will get Ten Hag and Man City will get Luis Enrique. We will get Rodgers/Pochetino.
 
https://totalfootballanalysis.com/analysis/ralf-rangnick-tactical-analysis-tactics

An in depth analysis of how Rangnick sets up his teams to play, for anyone that's interested.
Rangnick’s sides will not keep possession for the sake of possession. Neither will they sit back as a deep block to await a chance to regain possession. Instead, they will look to actively lure the opponent into pressing traps to win the ball with numerical superiority in certain areas. Once having won the ball, they aim at playing towards the opposition goal as fast as possible. During the possession phase, they will also look for the most vertical attacking options to always threaten the opposition. The idea lying behind all these principles is the chance of exploiting opposition disorganisation once having won the ball and the aim of decreasing the risk to lose possession with a wide and vulnerable attacking structure.

His style of play requires a lot of running, intensity, and physicality in general. Due to that, he prefers to play with relatively young squads. This enables his teams to recover more quickly and to keep up the high intensity in both, training and matches, throughout a whole season.

I'm not sure how many of our players even fit into this style of play.
 
This guy would make a good caretaker till Ten Hag can be grabbed. They are not identical but similar enough.


Speaking back in August 2019, HE told The Times : "Since Sir Alex left they were underperforming. They haven’t won the title since he left. At any club, if you cannot get the right players, then you should at least not sign the wrong ones.

"You are in trouble if you do that in one or two or three consecutive transfer windows.

"Club building is about building the right squad by transferring the right players away and having more than 50 per cent success rate of bringing in the right players. Then you must have the best possible coaches to develop these players."

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...anchester-united-ralf-rangnick-klopp-22112012

Kind of obvious when you put it like that
 
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If not Rangnick, I would take Favre as a caretaker manager, and then target permanent targets in the summer. Favre is a competent coach atleast, but I dont expect the board to have such rational plans.
Favre would have the same issues as Ole, weren't Dortmund unhappy with his coaching regarding building from the back and having possession in offensive areas i.e. we don't want another direct counter merchant?
 
Favre would have the same issues as Ole, weren't Dortmund unhappy with his coaching regarding building from the back and having possession in offensive areas i.e. we don't want another direct counter merchant?

I would take a competent direct counter merchant till end of the season.
 
I have a feeling Liverpool will get Ten Hag and Man City will get Luis Enrique. We will get Rodgers/Pochetino.
SAF comes out of retirement and takes over Arsenal, what other nightmare scenarios are you making up in your head?
 
I expect Nagelsmann, who is fantastic, to be with us for a few years. I don't see it going horribly wrong and I wouldn't want to swap him for anyone.
That doesn't negate the fact that the average managerial spell for us is about two years and a bit and so we are always in need for excellent candidates. Even managers who do brilliant move on at some point. There's cycles.

Ten Hag, due to his style of football, record at Ajax, and past affiliation with the club, is a top candidate to manage us whenever we would need someone. Apart from that, I like him, I also have a soft spot for Arsenal, I wouldn't begrudge Arsenal if they got him. It would also stylistically be a great fit and a potentially great match for both.

What fecking breath of fresh air that must be, appreciating managers for their current time and giving zero fecks knowing you’ll probably have a new guy in 3-4 years even if you win a CL or two.
Refreshing to have the club at the forefront rather than the manager.
 
What fecking breath of fresh air that must be, appreciating managers for their current time and giving zero fecks knowing you’ll probably have a new guy in 3-4 years even if you win a CL or two.
Fresh air? Oh man... just the reality at every club in the world. Well, almost everyone except United.
 
Would love Ralf here, not likely though as our owners and board would like his direct approach.
 
Would love Ralf here, not likely though as our owners and board would like his direct approach.

Yeah seeing that tweet yesterday saying our board aren't keen due to him wanting full control and them not being wiling to relinquish any (just like Conte) was an absolute kick in the guts and has totally disheartened me for the foreseeable future
 
Yeah seeing that tweet yesterday saying our board aren't keen due to him wanting full control and them not being wiling to relinquish any (just like Conte) was an absolute kick in the guts and has totally disheartened me for the foreseeable future

Every manager in football knows United is a commercial first football second franchise operation. You will get hung out to dry if you happen to need a world class defensive midfielder or central defender and there are no bargains available. Oc you'd want full control.

It seems nobody wants to come to Disneyland and play the role of Mickey Mouse.
 
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