Ralf Rangnick will present incoming boss Erik ten Hag with a shocking dossier of shame on every first team Manchester United player.
After talks with Director of Football John Murtough and CEO Richard Arnold the interim Old Trafford chief has been asked to hand Ten Hag a brutal “no holes barred” rundown on the players the Dutchman will inherit this summer.
And Rangnick, 63, has told them he won’t hold back after believing he’s been let down and hung out to dry by a dressing room he’s privately branded “selfish, over-inflated, lacking quality and too powerful”. Senior sources inside United’s Carrington training ground say Rangnick has been staggered by the lack of professionalism amongst the first-team squad.
And he’s claimed some players have blatantly IGNORED his instructions when he’s given them a pattern of play to employ in certain games. Rangnick has also told Murtough and Arnold many of United’s players are “not fit for purpose” and physically cannot cope with high-energy opponents who run further, faster and harder. And that’s why he’s told Arnold the club needs a clear-out and an influx of hungry young players.
He’s also advised the hierarchy to ditch their habit of signing big-name players for a short-term fix. The highly respected German, who has managed Schalke, Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig, even told staff at the club he believes former star and Sky TV pundit Gary Neville is right in his assessment that United’s team is “broken”. Rangnick joined United as interim head coach last November and quickly insisted HE might be the long-term managerial answer the club were looking for.
But in the space of less than five months Rangnick has seen at close quarters the mess United are in and is happy to hand the reins to Ten Hag who will leave Ajax next month. Rangnick’s murderous assessment of the current United squad will make bleak reading for 52-year-old Ten Hag. The German doesn’t rate defenders Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Eric Bailly, Phil Jones and is unsure about Victor Lindelof’s decisiveness and positioning.
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He believes Harry Maguire has carried the can for a series of inept defensive displays by the team but feels United’s £80million investment is so substantial the club can’t simply write off the England centre-back. In midfield Rangnick has been shocked that United don’t have the energy and physicality needed in the modern game. And he believes it’s an area that needs urgent attention with at least two hard running, high-energy recruits needed plus a play-maker.
In attack Rangnick believes United have big problems despite Cristiano Ronaldo ’s 20 goals this season. He’s told Murtough signing players like Edinson Cavani at the end of their careers – after a failed experiment with 30 year old Shanghai Shenhua attacker Odion Ighalo in 2020 – is short-sighted and a sticking-plaster strategy that has no future.
He’s banking on Ten Hag getting more from Marcus Rashford and £72 million winger Jadon Sancho but believes United need a main striker with Anthony Martial, on-loan at Seville, unlikely to be the answer. The dossier will make grim reading for Ten Hag. But Rangnick, who will move upstairs in a consultancy role this summer, is adamant United must address their problems now – or face more years in the wilderness.
