Rangnick dismantles Man United in stunning media briefing
Ralf Rangnick has tore into the setup at Manchester United and warned that a rebuild will only work if everyone fully commits to it.
Rangnick discussed the imminent appointment of Erik ten Hag as manager, as well as issuing injury updates on Paul Pogba and Cristiano Ronaldo, during the first part of his press conference of Friday.
But it was during his briefing to the written media afterwards that the German went into the greatest detail on Manchester United’s struggles.
“I can only tell you from what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard and experienced so far, Erik is a good choice – a very good choice. He has shown that in the past. I’m pretty convinced that he’s the best possible coach that you can get right now,” Rangnick said.
“One of the very few good things [from the Liverpool defeat] is that it’s crystal clear – you don’t even need glasses to analyse and to see where the problems are here.
16 Conclusions: Liverpool 4-0 Manchester United (9-0 agg)
“So now it’s only about how do we solve them? And for me, it’s clear, it’s not enough to do little minor amendments and little issues here and there some minor cosmetic things. No, in medicine, you would see this as an operation at the open heart.
“There are more things to be changed than some little things here and some minor things there. If this happens and if everybody has realised that this has to happen, and if people want to work together, then it makes sense.
“And then I still believe that it doesn’t need two or three years to change those things. This can happen within one year and other clubs, not too far away from here, have shown that it doesn’t take two, three, four years. That it’s possible in one, two, maybe three transfer windows.
“This is not something that only one single person as a manager can do. I mean, with all respect to Klopp and Pep, I’m sure that they didn’t all the didn’t do all the things themselves. There were also other people involved in those two clubs, top people in certain positions, no matter in which area it was, in order to rebuild. To build how we want here you have to have top people and they have to work together in a very close and in a very reliable way.”
Earlier, Rangnick had cast potential doubt on the two-year consultancy role that was expected to follow his interim reign, saying: “We have an agreement on that consultancy role, but in the end, it’s not a question of what has been written on paper or what has been agreed upon, it’s about what will really happen in everyday life and, and in everyone’s business.
“It’s also important how Erik ten Hag sees that. Does he like to speak with somebody like myself? How close does he want to work together? And those are the things we haven’t spoken about yet.
“So for me, I’m not worried about that at all. It’s not a question of having agreed upon a contract or whatever for the next two years – I’m 64 very soon so for me, it’s about what will really happen and how much does Ten Hag and the board of Manchester United really want to know my opinion and have my experience.
“I’m interested and I very much have a feeling with this club after these five-and-a-half months, I still see what kind of options we have, what kind of space for improvement there is and where we could develop.
“Again, having seen Liverpool play against us, having seen what happened in other clubs and we also spoke about Arsenal’s progress, why should this not be possible here? This is one of the biggest clubs in the world, we have perfect training conditions, we have a fantastic stadium… We have massive fan support, probably the best fan support I’ve ever experienced apart from Schalke in Germany. This is just amazing.
“Of course I would want to be part of that process. I don’t know if this is can happen and how this is really appreciated and wanted.”
