The Manchester United Thread: That's It. That's the Joke (Part 1)

I just heard on the wireless that LM haven’t yet agreed terms to let him leave…

Would lol if they act like kents just for the fun of it.

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If Rangnick is the football messiah, the media are making him out to be, why is he currently working in a football backwater like Russia? Lokomotiv Moscow are not even the best side in Moscow.

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And how does he turn a side with players like Bruno , Pogba , Ronaldo , Martial and Greenwood into a team of gegenpressing monsters in six months ?

IT AIN’T FUKIN’ 'APPENIN !

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Rangnick is not a football messiah.

Whenever someone gets sacked in Germany he is mentioned as a candidate but clubs often stay away from him because he wants too much power.

Think he could do wonders at smaller PL clubs (Newcastle, West Ham etc.) as a squad builder but ManU is clearly too big for.

As a coach I also don’t rate him that much.

I would brand Rangnick a ‘job hopper’ because he never really stays at one club or in one position for a longer time. He worked for Red Bull but not only at Leizig but also in Salzburg and New York.

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Well, thank you. While I think Lokomotiv has steadily improved over the last few seasons, Russian League has been terrible for some time now.

Well, I know everyone here always loves to deride opposition managers and particularly if at United, but the idea that you can’t be an excellent coach if you are currently at Lokomotiv Moskva is just meh. Everyone in my country is praising him and he has always been a coach that other coaches talk about for decades now. The negatives with Rangnick that I have read is that he wants to control absolutely everything and is quite authoritarian, which is why most clubs that are tempted by him doesn’t go for him in the end. But he is obviously a fantastic coach. No way on earth would so many coaches praise him if he wasn’t.
That doesn’t mean that he is anything like a Messiah, but really, who is ?

Regardless, I want to be open minded and not just sneer just because it’s United.

Anyway, he is brought on primarily as a Director of Sports as far as I understand and not a manager for the long term.

Jan Åge usually knows what he is talking about, he is certainly no sensationalist or muckraker, and he thinks he is brought in to find the next manager and not actually be the manager for the long term. Jan Åge also have very good sources in Germany. He is seldom wrong, though he seems to be making educated guesses a bit here concerning the role Rangnick is supposed to have in the future. Seems to make sense though.

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I wonder if Man Utd is perhaps the sort of job he could thrive at. There is a lot of work needed there, and the whole Ole saga may have left their owners with a bad taste following all the embarrassment and so happy to recruit someone who can re-organise the club from top to bottom. It shouldn’t affect the amount of cash the owners can continue pulling from the club

I’ve been racking my head about why in the world the United Board gave Ole a new contract 3 months ago. I mean everybody and their uncle was laughing about how no top club had any desire to poach the man so why were they throwing money in his direction.

The only answer I’ve come up with is that none of the decision makers at club watches football. And because they don’t watch football, they would have checked the stats at the end of last season seen United in 2nd place and thought, ‘Okay Ole is a great coach, better tie him up.’

And if you look at it from that perspective, it’s absolutely mind-boggling that a behemoth like United is run in such a shambolic way. Which means that whether Rangnick is a good coach or not ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s like it didn’t really matter how good of a coach Rafa was, Newcastle still had Mike Ashley to fuck things up.

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image

Ole’s office door sign been taken down to sell on e-bay… :0)

I’m not falling for that one again.

Ole Ole Gunnar Solskjær GIF - Ole Ole Gunnar Solskjær Ole At The Wheel -  Discover & Share GIFs

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Rangnick’s value isn’t just in his coaching, but also his wider understanding of how a modern club should be set up, and his ability to do that. Utd haven’t been afraid to spend money for Ole, I think they will do the same for Rangnick and give him the space to improve the wider aspects of the club.

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Oh goody, this is going to be funny! :rofl:

It was to entertain us, surely? :rofl:

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Everyone in my country were not praising Ole Gunnar as a Manager ! :smiley: Few actually, haha. It is more correct to say that “everyone” were surprised and that “everyone” noted that he only got that job due to his internal club relations :wink:

It is really not the same :smiley:

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It is however very, very correct that most people hoped he would succeed. And this is not for reasons of Nationalism (well, some of that too with some people like everywhere else of course), but primarily because “everyone” was hoping that he could be a door opener for Norwegian managers in the future, since coming from a provincial country is really not an advantage in football normally (for instance, Erling Haaland had to do stupid, stupid well before he proved his worth to his doubters, since coming from Norway is never an advantage). It is, perhaps sadly, very dubious that he was. Some fear he became more of a door slammer…

Rangnick is a fun appointment. An idealist and deep thinker, a great strategic mind but not necessarily a particularly great manager. I thought he had moved into director level roles for that reason - and perhaps the plan at Man Utd is for him to be manager this year then go to be Director of Football next season.

He is a man with vision who, when allowed to do so, has developed some interesting sides.

As a manager I don’t think he has ever proven to be particularly successful though. His influence is undeniable and Klopp took many if his ideas. Of course the main difference between the two is that Klopp took his ideas and made them better, added personality and warmth to make them more successful. Rangnick does not have these qualities. In fact all of disciples - Klopp, Nagelsmann, Marsch… are better managers than him.

If they decide to promote him to DoF I think the Outlook for Man Utd in future suddenly becomes a lot rosier. If they really just plan on using him to set a course for a new manager and step away then they’ll continue to be a humiliating shit show.

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Pretty sure most sources now claim that his intended role is indeed DoF. But time will tell, as 100 percent accuracy is hard to claim right now.

Isn’t Murtagh taking on the role of DoF?

Or has he been given the arse as well?

I would suspect they can create additional roles, with Murtagh being more administrative - perhaps it is Fletcher’s position that is altered?

Tell you what though, for a fan base that loved to mock Klopp as someone who had “never won anything outside of Germany”, they have really bought into the idea of Rangnick as the messiah quickly.

I guess he does have European titles under his belt - having won the Intertoto Cup 22 years ago.

I have a slight aversion to two managers in particular. Rangnick and Bielsa. Mostly because they are endlessly praised for their ideas and progressive thinking but neither has actually achieved very much in terms of success. Other people have taken lessons from their management careers, used them and improved them. Added pragmatism to ideology, added steel to silk. Added personality. Added trophies. Klopp is the prime example but there are others.

I don’t want Rangnick managing my club in the same way I don’t want a psychological evaluation from Sigmund Freud or a medical diagnosis from Hippocrates.

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Is short sharp shock treatment, not a man for the long term that’s why. He is very effective at what he does. His praises come mainly from those that appreciate his tactical sense yet manipulate them to a form a lot less physically demanding yet still effective like Klopp. Bielsa despite his short falls has in fact helped save some clubs.