Ralf Rangnick proffered a permanent solution but United choose to make more casualties with Erik Ten Hag

Ralf Rangnick appeared to have unraveled the puzzle at Manchester United during his short stint as the club's interim manager but the hierarchy did not take heed to his priceless advice.

Albeit the German did not enjoy the best of time in the helm of affairs in Old Trafford, Rangnick, who had proven to be more of a administrative minded man prior to his appointment at the club did left blueprints that could have healed the club completely.

Looking back and you'll realize it could have been more worth it had speculations of him becoming the club's Director after leaving the Coaching role come to pass.

Even in his early days as a professional football coach, Rangnick did not have a reputation of thriving when the stake is high but he flourishes more in an environment that gives him the avenue to build from scratch.

The notion was proven truth during his time at Stuttgart, Hannover and even Schalke, where he helped all these teams finesse nightmares into glamour.

His appointment by Red Bull as the Director of football for both Leipzig and Salzburg was a great moment in the history of the two clubs and it is thanks to him that they have become one of the best in their respective leagues.

At Manchester United, he got the biggest job of his career when he was called in as the man to takeover the coaching role following the departure of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who was sacked in November 2021.

The flaw of the club under Erik Ten Hag, who started his time at the club brightly is a wake up call as this reality is recurring at Manchester United.

Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and now Ten Hag all started their time well at the club but in the long run, they can't help watch the progress they've made crumble, leaving the club having to build all over again.

Ten Hag started well at the club bar the back-to-back defeat that kickstarted his Premier League career, Manchester United went on remarkable run for a club in their first season under a new manager.

League wins against top teams like Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool while in the continent they eliminated Barcelona from the Europa League in the round of 32, winning 4-3 over two legs.

Their efforts was rewarded with the club's first title in five years as they defeated Newcastle United in the final of the Carabao Cup back in February, and they at a time almost made it a three horse race for the Premier League title.

Unfortunately, they lost the chance and for those that has been following, their failure to achieve the latter was the start of their downfall.

They got battered 7-0 by Liverpool. Bundled out of the Europa League by Sevilla. League losses to Newcastle United, West Ham United and Brighton but in the end, they did manage to qualify for the UEFA Champions League, which made the Dutchman's first season satisfying.

Many would have thought the current season will be the one the real Manchester United will start to unfold but they have been underwhelming so far, and back-to-back 3-0 home losses in the Manchester derby and to Newcastle United further undressed their misery.

Same old story as it happened to his predecessors. In the derby loss to City during the weekend, Manchester United reached a 34th home League defeat since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013 (just more than ten years ago), as many as they did in almost 27 years with the Scott.

It's a deja vu that has become a malady at the club. Yet as they struggle to comprehend the situation, they might be leaving out a sound solution proffered by a man they had hired and let off.

In an exclusive interview with Sky Sports News in April 2022, Rangnick warned: "I know that for the future, and I think even more so for a big club like Manchester United, you can't put all those jobs and tasks and the whole responsibility only on the shoulder of one person - on the manager. I'm not sure if this can be dealt with by one person, no matter how good he is.

"I know Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea also have smart people who take care of recruitment, scouting, the medical department… I think this is also an issue for our club, where they have to pay attention to."

Accessing things at the club, Manchester United has surely discarded the warnings of Rangnick as Erik Ten Hag appears to be the man in charge of identification of players, and demands who the club brings in.

Mason Mount, Tyrell Malacia, Sofyan Amrabat, Wout Weghorst, Christian Eriksen, Antony, Andre Onana and Lisandro Martinez are some of the players signed under Ten Hag, and all having traces of Eredivisie or some connection with Ten Hag.

It will be therefore naive of anyone to believe that the manager has no influence in the transfer decisions.

Albeit this is not so bad but you can not underestimate the role of a sports director, as evidence in Liverpool, where Michael Edwards opted that the club sign Mohamed Salah instead of fulfilling the wish of Jurgen Klopp to sign Julian Brandt.

Aitor 'Txiki' Begiristain is playing a massive role in the success of the other side of Manchester and even Pep Guardiola acknowledges his brilliance and how much he makes him better as a manager.

These are some of the details the Manchester United hierarchy continues to overlook and time and again it comes back to hunt them.

Whereas they had a good chance to make Rangnick the Sporting Director, which the club had proposed before he left to join Austria as the head coach of the national team. 

It is worth noting that when he was yet a superstar, Erling Haaland was a player Rangnick told Manchester United to sign but the failure of the club allowed him to eventually find his way to the other side of Manchester, where his brilliance now directly affects their own project.

Ten Hag was a good manager at Ajax but the Dutch club had an identity before he was hired. However, himself is not a complete Saint and even sold himself out in a recent interview.

When asked if his United team will be able to play the same football that you showed with Ajax, Ten Hag replied : "Never! We will never play that football because those were different players. This is also not why I came here. We are playing a different football than I showed at Ajax because I have to, because I can't play the same way."

"The players decide how you play. Ajax has a very typical and characteristic style of play, with Manchester United I will always show different football, I did so last year as well. We play much more direct football here because I have the players for that here." [viaplay]

At the same time, reality shows the club fulfilled his wants with the players the has been signed since his arrival except for Casemiro and Rasmus Hojlund, because signing Frenkie de Jong and Harry Kane became too much.

Rasmus Hojlund however was even a signing endorsed by the Dutchman. And Manchester United had to go all out to complete the signing, despite the player being overvalued by Atalanta and still recovering from an injury.

Ten Hag is also not fair in his judgement and even though it is understandable to banish Jadon Sancho from the team, he sold out to player to unfold the rough episode.

"On his performance in training, we didn't select him. You have to reach the highest level every day at Manchester United. You can make choices in the front line, so in this game he wasn't selected." Ten Hag said when asked about the Englishman.

But when asked of another underperforming player in Antony, he has entirely different words for a reply.

“I’m a fighter and Antony is a fighter as well. He has the confidence. He’s brave and I’m confident he’ll bring the performance. He’s the right player for us.”

Truth be told, Ten Hag is not making things easy.

The club gave the manager the keys to too much and the impact has not been great on the project. Maybe Ralf Rangnick is right after all.

As the club continues to struggle, regret will not help in any way but realizing how to permanently get rid of the trouble, that made world class managers look like amateur in their club.

Hassan Afolabi