Rangnick may well be a mixed blessing
United's next manager looks a good fit in some ways, but a bad one in others
To need one caretaker manager, Mr Glazer, may be regarded as a misfortune. To need two in a week looks like carelessness. After sacking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a painful task that simply had to be done, United placed Michael Carrick in charge for a couple of games and sent an SOS to the world – save our season. It has been answered by Ralf Rangnick, who, just like Solskjaer three years ago, is willing to abandon a comfortable role on the fringe for the chance to direct on the big stage at Old Trafford. The appointment has received a good press, something Rangnick knows all about. But rather like United’s last big signing, Cristiano Ronaldo, it has the whiff of a mixed blessing.
First, the good news. Once it became clear that Mauricio Pochettino would not be easily prised from PSG or Erik ten Hag from Ajax, Rangnick was the most promising name on the shortlist. He will bring clear thinking, and should instil the thing the first XI conspicuously lack – an identity. He has plenty of experience of building a culture. He has an eye for talent, having given junior coaching jobs to both Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel. His other eye is for a bargain, as he showed by signing Sadio Mane at Salzburg and Roberto Firmino at Hoffenheim, both for peanuts. He has already won the hand of the most coveted figure in football, Erling Haaland (also at Salzburg). His favoured formation, the 4-2-2-2, should suit United. He is evidently his own man, and probably brave enough to tell Ronaldo to join in the press or sit on the bench.
Now, the bad news. Rangnick’s only experience of English football came 40 years ago with Southwick, in Sussex – a club so small that it makes Molde look like Man City. He will be the only German in the village, so he won’t bring the usual bonus of a foreign manager, the ability to make a few players feel at home. (That said, his English is excellent, better than Solskjaer’s.) He is not used to handling big clubs, or big names. He disapproves of big cars, saying they’re a sign of big egos, which is admirable, but will hardly endear him to the squad he now inherits. He is used to having full control, something no United manager since Alex Ferguson has come close to achieving. He is turning up in mid-season, just as Klopp did at Liverpool six years ago: that was in early October, not the end of November, and for all his dynamism Klopp only lifted Liverpool from tenth to eighth – which is where United are now.
What’s going on, some wags have been saying, United have made a sensible appointment. Well, yes, but it’s also very much in character, in two senses. First, it feels like an over-reaction to their previous choice, just as Solskjaer was to Jose Mourinho, or Louis van Gaal to David Moyes. Or Boris Johnson to Theresa May, though we can’t blame the Glazers for that one.
Secondly, and more broadly, it’s all too typical of the modern United. Well-run clubs create overloads on the field; badly run clubs create overloads on the payroll. United, after years of disdaining the idea of a director of football, now have three of them – , Darren Fletcher, John Murtough and Rangnick, who will stay on for two years as “football advisor”, even if his interregnum is a flop. They have two interim managers, in Rangnick and Carrick, or, if you prefer, three assistants, in Carrick, Kieran McKenna and Mike Phelan, making a grand total of six chiefs on the football side, seven if you count the set-piece coach Eric Ramsay, nine if you throw in Rangnick’s pair of incoming analysts. Meanwhile, in the boardroom, United somehow find themselves with three chief executives – Ed Woodward the not-quite-lame duck, Richard Arnold the not-quite-anointed successor, and Joel Glazer the not-quite-absentee landlord.
This nonsense even extends to the pitch. United have four international No.10s – Bruno Fernandes, Jesse Lingard, Donny van de Beek and Juan Mata, the last three of them unfairly ostracised by Solskjaer. They have two ancient centre-forwards, gamely holding back the years – Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani. They have three thrilling young strikers, all at risk of being held back – Mason Greenwood, Charlie McNeill and Joe Hugill. They have two top-class goalkeepers – David de Gea and Dean Henderson. They have two left-backs who are better at attacking than defending, while not being as good at it as their counterparts at Chelsea – Luke Shaw and Alex Telles. They have three right-wingers under 22, all signed in the past year – Jadon Sancho, Facundo Pellistri and Amad. They have a stack of starlets who get a game or two, then vanish into thin air or the Championship – Ethan Laird, Teden Mengi, Di’Shon Bernard, James Garner, Ethan Galbraith, Shola Shoretire, Tahith Chong, Hannibal Mejbri, Anthony Elanga. All these players are highly talented and many of them are chronically under-employed, which has to be demoralising.
Can Rangnick sort it all out? We fervently hope so. He has a better chance than Solskjaer, who showed little interest in systems. Rangnick is an organiser, for sure. The danger is that he could be the kind of organiser you see in the Ryman sale – you snap it up, you put it on your desk, it looks great, and six months later you realise that you’re still surrounded by piles of clutter, because the problem wasn’t the desk, it was you.
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