Ralf Rangnick is set to be the interim manager of Manchester United until the end of the season. The 63-year-old has a verbal agreement with the English club.
The main tipping point is that he will be allowed to stay on as a consultant up to two years after the managerial spell. This will allow him to have a say in the club choices and future.
He is currently working as the sporting director of Lokomotiv Moscow and is in talks with the club to let him leave. Manchester United are prepared to accept his proposal for being a consultant of the club. Once Moscow allows Rangnick to leave, the agreement is set to be official with the Red Devils.
So here we take a look at all the comments Ralf Rangnick previously made about Manchester United and their current group of players.
Manchester United
– “Since Sir Alex [Ferguson] left they were underperforming,” Rangnick told The Times in August 2019.
“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.”
– It’s always difficult to follow someone like Sir Alex Ferguson, who was so successful and in place for a long time – and that’s even harder if you are often changing coaches,” Rangnick told the Guardian in October 2019.
“With every coaching change, the identity changes and this is reflected in the sporting development. You can look at the money that team has had available in the last five years and say there has been an underperformance.”
Paul Pogba
Rangnick previously worked as RB Leipzig’s sporting director in 2017, and he mentioned Pogba while discussing Naby Keita in 2017.
The 63-year-old said he “wouldn’t swap Keita with Pogba for our style of play” during an interview with German outlet Sport1.
Jadon Sancho
“We were scouting him for four years at Leipzig and we even met Jadon, his family and his agent three years ago,” Rangnick said in September 2020. “Ralph Hasenhuttl and myself met them in London but unfortunately, he decided to then go to Borussia Dortmund.
“It would’ve been a very expensive transfer for us, but in the end, Jadon decided to join Dortmund. His development in the last three years has been amazing. He’s one of the best wing offensive players in Europe currently.
“If you look at his statistics last season in the Bundesliga he had 18 goals and 18 assists. As a winger player, those statistics are phenomenal and currently in Europe I don’t see any other player with his combination of pace, being dangerous in front of goal and ability to get assists.
“He’s one of the biggest talents in Europe and Dortmund know he’s one of the most important players in their squad.”
Cristiano Ronaldo
“It would be absurd to think that it could work with them here,” Rangnick said in 2016 when asked if he would sign Ronaldo or Lionel Messi for RB Leipzig. “They are both too old and too expensive.”
Luke Shaw
“They [Manchester United] could do with a left-back<2 Rangnick said in September 2020. “I know they have Luke Shaw but I’m not so sure if he’s still on the same kind of level you need for a club like Manchester United.”
