Pep Guardiola is prone to overthinking in Champions League games. Football fans will remember when he went into last season's final against Chelsea with a successful default formation but opted to play with no defensive midfielders.
No one understood why he made the tactical switch and, of course, City would go on to lose the game 1-0, with the lack of midfield pressure playing a serious role in the defeat.
Manchester United fans had a similar 'what the?' moment when the lineup was announced ahead of the trip to Atletico Madrid for the Champions League round of 16 first leg.
The first thing that caught many United fans' eyes was to the decision to start with Victor Lindelof at right back. Some thought it may have been a back three with an auxiliary wing-back choice of Jadon Sancho or Marcus Rashford which would have been equally as puzzling as the selection of three central defenders.
When Rangnick was asked about whether it was a three at the back or Lindelof at right-back in his pre-match questions from the media he replied: "Yes, we decided to choose a lineup and a formation in which we could always react to what Atletico do.
"We can play with different formations and change during the game and still have enough physicality and also the physical size for set pieces, whether they are for us or them."
But once the game started, it seemed that, at least defensively, Lindelof was at right-back and while he largely dealt with Joao Felix in one-vs-one duels, he did not contribute to the build-up and in the moments where he did find himself up the pitch, he looked lost when tasked with making decisions with the ball.
And luckily the crossbar denied the Swedish defender from scoring an infamous own-goal at the Wanda Metropolitano.
But part of the issue with the team's build-up was the second contentious decision from Rangnick's team selection. With Scott McTominay unavailable, Paul Pogba was deployed deeper and Atletico took advantage by pressing him when he received the ball with his back to the opposition.
He lost the ball on numerous occasions in this position and the United defence needed to scramble the ball away to stop Atletico from pulling even further ahead.
With Nemanja Matic, a player who can play at least 50 or so minutes, on the bench it seems strange that the team did not decide to deploy the Serbian in the absence of McTominay or instead go for the back three Rangnick had previously teased to mitigate the need to play so directly through Pogba.
One of the possible explanations for the tweaks to the lineup is that Rangnick was trying to send a wider message to the club that this squad is not entirely fit for purpose and there was a sense of square pegs being wedged into round holes on the night. Lindelof was lauded for his run against Leeds which led to the team's second goal on Sunday and no other right-back that Rangnick has played so far has looked close to replicating that.
The same can be said about the fact that despite McTominay's obvious flaws, he is the only player that Rangnick appears to trust in the number six position. Another player who appears to have the manager's trust is Anthony Elanga, who spared United's blushes on the night and was a credit to the manager making the necessary changes to force a draw.
It is clear that in the summer United need a major overhaul. Whether it was intentional or not, Rangnick highlighted those deficiencies against Atletico and while neither decision particularly paid off, Elanga's late leveller in the 1-1 stalemate ensured that the German did not suffer his own Guardiola moment on Europe's biggest stage.
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