A few weeks ago, Martial was agitating for a move, and in a pre-match presser, Ralf said something to the effect of “We wanted Martial in the squad, but he told us he does not want to play”
The next day, Martial put a statement out on Instagram claiming he said nothing of the sort and always made himself available for the squad. Now we have the same thing with Lingard, Ralf said in the presser that Lingard asked for a few days off to clear his head, and Lingard has come out and rubbished that, suggesting that United told him to take some time off.
If this happened once, you could give Ralf the benefit of the doubt. Now it’s a pattern of Ralf and the players deliberately undermining each other. The players have entirely too much power at that club, and to me that’s the fault of the board, who have encouraged many players to create “brands” and maintain a big online presence. giving massive wages to bang average players can’t help either.
I’m not aware whether Ralf in his previous managerial terms with Red Bull Leipzig etc ever spoke out against a player like this. If not , The only thing I can say is that this is pretty damning for Martial and Lingard.
From what I’ve heard of Ralf , He seems to be a guy who’s a straight shooter. He calls things as he sees it. I’m not sure the divas in the manchester united dressing room can handle someone telling them what he sees it as. Def not after how Ole pampered them
Rangnick doesn’t have any power. Ole was so bad they needed to make a change. Any good managers, who they hope might stick around and build a title challenging team, were all busy. So Rangnick came in, steady hand, and he probably negotiated a consultancy role and also thought he would be given a fair crack to earn the job on a permanent basis.
Such was their desperation that they agreed, in likely anticipation they will pay him off and wave goodbye in the summer, if a new man, such as Pochettino, comes along. Arguably Rangnick might stay on under such a circumstance, I don’t expect it, but if he does he won’t have any power.
Deschamps can ruin the whole plan. Zidane to PSG, Poch to Man Utd. Not so fast. Maybe Deschamps will leave and Zidane might prefer the France job?
Also, the shirt exchange thing is the right move, and also indicative that he has become persona non grata. If convicted it will be interesting to see if they pull a Mutu, and go after him for the $$.
I think Poch is a decent coach, but he’s a level below Klopp/Pep/Conte/Teuchel for sure. He will come in and want to clear out a bunch of players and get some of his own in. He’ll spend 400M quid in the first couple of seasons, then the fans will turn on him when they don’t win anything in year 2.
United need a complete overhaul from top to bottom, just like we had to go through with FSG. They made some mistakes, but quickly started putting in the correct structure and vision to take Liverpool into the future. Bringing in Klopp was the culmination of that forward planning. United still buy players based on online brand and commercial revenue, they buy big name, recognizable players that happen to play in a position of need, but with no regard to whether that player fits the system they want to play. Case in point - AWB, DVB, Sancho. The LVG and Mourinho sagas prove that the board/leadership structure at Man United tends to side with the players over the manager, making the manager’s job nearly impossible.
I’m more than happy for this cycle to continue, and it will as long as they have the same muppets running the club. They will hire managers, spend hundreds of millions on players, then sack the manager in 2-3 seasons. Rinse and repeat.
If Poch does go to the scum in the summer I can see them spunking a lot of money on Kane. Which would be great, Kane is another declining attacker with a bad history of injuries.
A rarely have anything nice to say about Mank-fester Utd, but fair play to them for this, nice touch. As we all know too well, replica jerseys cost a King’s ransom these days, so it’s nice they’re considering their fans.
It’s Boro, and United have their strongest XI out. There’d be no excuses for NOT winning this handily. United’s squad cost probably 50 times what Boro’s did.
