Manchester United are delving deep into another crisis with huge problems looming behind the scenes while Ralf Rangnick is struggling to clean up the situation left behind by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Ralf Rangnick has already seen his first promise to Manchester United come to almost nought just weeks into his stewardship at Old Trafford with the German tactician having come under major pressure with players unhappy with his style of coaching.
Among the first promises Rangnick had adamantly made to United was that he would ensure that the players would have to fall for his methods.
”The players have to buy in,” he said upon arriving.
“I need to get into their heart, their brains, their blood, whatever. The first steps have been taken.”
Confident words and a bold assurance indeed but fast forward barely two months and it has all alarmingly gone south, with no hopeful signs of progress. On the contrary, reports have been streaming out fast and furious that the players are hardly impressed with the German coach’s football philosophy, despite him being renowned as the ‘Godfather of Gegen-pressing’.
United’s recalcitrant players are seemingly unhappy with Rangnick’s punishing training methods that is insistent on an extremely high and intense level of pressing when out of possession of the ball – a process that requires a very high level of fitness and discipline – even though it is the exact style of football that has been utilised to great success at Liverpool and Chelsea where fellow Germans Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel have won Champions League honors.
This was apparently one of the key reasons why United made the move for Rangnick to replace Norwegian Ole Gunnar solskjaer until the end of the season and their keenness to keep hold of him beyond the summer. Unfortunately the cards are not falling as hoped as the players are reluctant to be on board for the whole assignment as his tactics have left many of them befuddled or at best mildly amused.
Prior to his arrival, Rangnick was described as someone who is not unwilling to challenge the status quo while initially mixing it up, before implementing his methods and coaching structure the moment the opportunities avail themselves. His training – highlighted as being intense, ruthless and physical – does not indulge passengers not enamored of his philosophy and it’s basically either his way or the highway.
Which then makes his role as an interim manager all the more bewildering as this is clearly a man who has the big picture in mind, so why then has he been given the short-shrift and the reins for the short-term instead in a managerial capacity?
Now it looks as if Rangnick could well be caught in a rather awkward and possibly uncomfortable situation as it could be time for him to be th e one having to adapt rather than the other way round as one of the main culprits for the rut is the presumption behind the obvious complacency latent in the team that there is more than sufficient reserves of talent on show at Old Trafford to get them to eviscerate teams at the snap of their fingers although this has clearly yet to happen of late with United having hardly scored more than once in just one game since the ex-RB Leipzig supremo charged in.
Achieving a final top four placing, although still the main ambition, is now something closer to the impossible dream and to realistically come near to achieving that might mean the German tactician having to abandon his principles as the Old Trafford motley squad do not in any way eager to aandon their lackadaisical attitudes and lazy ways.
Rangnick’s appointment was supposed to be about giving the club a direction finder and a tactical imprint but instead they look as disparate and lackluster a team as ever. Solving that might require some more intense soul-searching with the 63-year-old possibly having to go back to the drawing board quickly as the time continues to run out.