@Samid where’s the press conference thread
Ralf Rangnick | ex-interim manager | does anyone rate him?
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I think in some report or interview he indicated that he reported to the Board of Management. So I suspect that his current 'interim' role is to assess who he keeps and what he needs within the Organisation, once he goes upstairs into the 'Director of Philosophy/Culture' role or maybe Sporting Director -- something he did at RB but across multiple locations (NYC, Austria, Germany etc.)
The 'consultant' term is some corporate speak. It makes it sound nebulous such that there is less of a threat to the current management and coaching term. He is a change agent if anything.
I don’t cover dead rubbers. @Sassy Colin is my deputy
Was just thinking about that, actually.
Agreed. He won't operate as a mere consultant in the normal sense of the word - it would be odd to make a big song and dance about giving someone a two year contract in such a capacity.
We've hired him to bring about fundamental changes - that seems clear. And he'll be given the authority to make big decisions - no reason to think otherwise.
.... Otherwise there is no reason for him to quit a lucrative contract with the Russians. Then take a step down in terms of roles & responsibles. Like asking a starter/player to take a pay cut to go to another club albeit United.
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thanks - interesting post. Wonder if we will be coming back to themes like this one day
On this part, it's true that it is hard and people tend to not realize that what is difficult is that it's not monotonous, it's a succession of sprints of various length and intensities. You need to give players purpose, make them understand what you want, why you want it and there needs to be palpable results, you also need depth. The alternative is what Pep does, rely more on possession and having an unbreakable grip on the game's rhythm while his players can play at high intensity when needed, they make sure to be the ones dictating when it's needed.
Agreed, I stick up for him a lot (as anyone who listens to the pod will testify
) and it's not because he plays for Scotland. It's because when he plays for the national team you see a lot of what he does and I think he gets stick for doing simple jobs really well but he has been asked to play a number of roles the last few years and some don't suit him. I think under RR and whoever comes next he will become, at the least, a very important squad member. And any title winning manager will tell you, you need players like McT in squads.Both surely.
He talked a lot about needing to work harder, and he was right. Sadly, he didn't seem to be able to achieve it. The obvious increase in workrate the moment Carrick was put in charge seemed to show that players will only work hard when they are given some sort of tactical plan.
I have a hard time considering that he has less basic understanding of Football than millions of Football fans. But I can totally understand the idea that understanding something doesn't mean that you can apply it at an elite level. I'm sure that if you have an actual conversation with Ole, he will show a very good understanding of what he ideally wants.
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Agreed, I'm not expecting anything huge from this season personally. The main reason I'm supportive of the appointment is that for the first time in a while the club appears to have realised the need to change how we operate to keep up with the modern game. We need to put in place structures which sit apart from the manager which look out for the medium-long term and ensure consistency of approach/style/"philosophy" so we don't keep pinballing between managers with different styles who spend hundreds of millions trying to mould the squad they inherited into one that fits their preferences before getting sacked after a couple of years. I actually think recruitment-wise Ole did some decent work in putting a stop to that and building a squad of players who would fit a certain style of play, it's just he didn't have the tactical vision/understanding to make use of what he'd built and like all managers he made some bad calls on signings. Rangnick's appointment to me feels like a further step in the right direction in that regard, even if it's just the start of a longer process.
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If anything, the stats that were analysed show the exact opposite - the only 2 areas where we did worse in Rangnick's first game than under Ole was distance covered and sprints. Kind of shows the problem wasn't the effort, but the way the effort was being made. So yes, there does seem to have been an immediate impact, albeit minimal, and the true one will come with time and coaching. But that was encouraging.
I like how he just answers the questions clearly and explains exactly what they do.
It will be interesting to see how Ralf deals with the media during a bad patch.
It will be interesting to see how Ralf deals with the media during a bad patch.
Oh absolutely. It was only towards the end of his reign that he resorted to generic "United DNA"-type cliches, but inevitably recency bias has now led to most people regarding him as not having a clue.
Indeed …everyone has a plan and philosophy…until they lose 3 games on the bounce ..
the players may not do this intentionally.
But if you keep getting picked no matter how shite your form is, players would subconsciously not giving 100% as they know they'll still get picked next game.
I also guess that training intensity would dropped as the players who knows wont get picked will train with less intensity.
Then I think you need to look up an average to below average PL midfielder to compare him with. Which I suspect will disabuse you of that notion. His passing stats aren't worse than f.e. Declan Rice's. Fred's are markedly better, that is true, but again...."bloodbath"? Really?
Anyway, I was simply taking issue with a case of blatant and obvious hyperbole. Because I think discussion gets pretty useless when people don't bother with the difference between "not good enough" and "totally atrocious". It's not going that well, really. I've got some people who just keep on shouting "YES HE IS!!", some people arguing it makes no fecking difference if someone is useless or merely not very good and now you making happy assumptions about stats that I very much doubt you'd be able to back up.
His passing stats are worse than Declan Rice's and Rice isn't a particularly good passer either.
https://fbref.com/en/players/1c7012b8/scout/365_euro/Declan-Rice-Scouting-Report
https://fbref.com/en/players/d93c2511/scout/365_euro/Scott-McTominay-Scouting-Report
It is so refreshing to hear your manager talking about tactics. Love that
Yep I would think so, dependent on his success here of course. Will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
You can understand what Pep does and why he does it, but it won't make you an elite manager. What's so strange about a particular manager not getting a job on merit and being completely out of depth? I very much doubt he has any deep insights.
Who said that it was strange?
Hard time considering. In any case, it's obviously very likely that Ole has more knowledge about football than a random fan, but his biggest downfall in my view, is his lack of self reflection so there appears to be no development. I mean, just because someone is made manager at a club doesn't thereby mean that they have earned it, and I think that many times for different managers (Sherwood for instance, I would actually say hiring a random gives you more of a chance). And you see that all throughout society, at every level, in the vast majority of industries.
I don't follow your point, who said that he earned anything? The point was about Ole having no plan versus Ole being not good enough to implement a plan/philosophy to the required level. I think that the latter is more likely than the former.
It's about that basic understanding of football. I think he's very lacking, but would still suspect through the mere fact he played football all his life he surely has accrued more knowledge than a random, though there might be exceptions to this rule in the world of football.
He definitely did not have the ability to implement a plan, that much is obvious, but what was his plan? Talked about pressing from the front and bought a slow defender, talked about building out from the back and bought a technically deficient full back (this is much covered territory in fairness). Did he actually have any plan?
I'm pretty sure that it has nothing to do with basic understanding of Football, that's the part that I believe is the least likely. Would you say that Keane, Koeman, Seedorf, Tigana or many other brilliant players didn't had a basic understanding of Footballl and that it the reason they weren't brilliant managers? Or maybe coaching a team has more to do with your ability to convey informations and teach people, being a brilliant engineer won't make you a brilliant teacher of engineering, teaching is a skill in itself.
You mean you don't prefer it when the manager says that he's not into tactics and that football is all about passion, effort and wanting it more?
I really like how he introduces someone unfamiliar and talks about their history from player to their work credentials. It’s all about professionalism, he has a job to do and knows exactly what and how he wants things.
Yeah of course you’re right, that’s clearly what happened, I just think if we’d had a poll before the match saying “we won back possession twice as many times etc, do you think we ran more or less than average”, a large majority would have said more.
I guess what I’m saying is the positioning clearly worked pretty well, which is impressive for one training session.
The best thing about Rangnick is he has a bit of aura. It reminds me a bit of when Wenger went in at Arsenal.
The pundits were initially as dismissive of Wenger as they were of Ranginck. What's he doing in Japan? What's he doing in Russia? If he is so good why have we never heard of him?
I am pretty sure Wenger also got labelled as a 'professor.'
That season Wenger managed to turn around a 12 point gap at the top of the table (it still hurts. Would never have happened with Keane fit!) Let's hope Ralf can do the same.
The pundits were initially as dismissive of Wenger as they were of Ranginck. What's he doing in Japan? What's he doing in Russia? If he is so good why have we never heard of him?
I am pretty sure Wenger also got labelled as a 'professor.'
That season Wenger managed to turn around a 12 point gap at the top of the table (it still hurts. Would never have happened with Keane fit!) Let's hope Ralf can do the same.
What a nonsense argument which can be done for every shitty player we have. First of all, Fletch and Park were important players and proved their worth. Something McT has never done or shown so far, he's been poor more often than good and has never really contributed or helped us. Usually, he's one of the worst performers. O'Shea was a versatile player who never played week in week out like McT.
So our new first team coach has absolutely no experience outside of the USA.
He needs to be good enough to get the lads playing in a way we can outplay Klopp and Guardiola teams.
Hell of a step up. Good luck to him.
He needs to be good enough to get the lads playing in a way we can outplay Klopp and Guardiola teams.
Hell of a step up. Good luck to him.
I'll stop derailing this thread (after this post). Concede the argument. To me the distance between "basic understanding of football" (like having played it professionally) and being an elite manager is vast. I would say having been a pro puts you at an advantage in terms of skills, but only a little. The main advantage would be the connections and your name. What does it take to be an elite manager? Vision, self reflection, confidence, intelligence, people skills, and the desire to keep learning. Out of those I'd say Ole had the people skills. Take someone like Sherwood, I'd say he's got none. Dwight Yorke applied for the Villa job, and wasn't interviewed. That to me was a logical thing. He's shown absolutely nothing. But if he was white and English he'd probably have been given the chance to get his ideas across. As much as United has been run in an utterly incompetent fashion over the years now, I see this absolute lack of merit all around, which is understandable as it's a moneymaking machine.
Had to get an exception ruling from UEFA as he doesn't have a UEFA Pro License either.
It's not really about getting the best coaches necessarily. Never has been. No club has a 'dream team' of a coaching staff. There's no coaching team version of the galacticos. The most important thing is that they are on the same page as the manager and can coach his players to play his way. One of the reasons why the players didn't seem to get much out of training sessions under the previous regime might not necessarily have been related to the youth team experience of the guy leading the sessions as much as the guy who led the sessions didn't have much to work with in terms of how his boss wanted players to be trained.
If you're working on the instruction that the team needs "a bit of magic" then feck me, surely you'd put the cones out and then go and have a cigarette somewhere quiet and wonder how the feck you ended up in this position.
If you're working on the instruction that the team needs "a bit of magic" then feck me, surely you'd put the cones out and then go and have a cigarette somewhere quiet and wonder how the feck you ended up in this position.
The man commands everyone in his presence. Finally, no clowns!
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