Ralf Rangnick | Austria manager

[Yakuza_devils]

As many already said, Rangnick was not the main problem. Our so called new football structure decided to employ a gegenpressing coach which was not suitable for the squad and also not supported him in transfer window. Our season was thrown away in Nov by the new football structure.

And we all thought that we have to compromise because we need Rangnick to advise to rebuild the club as consultant. He was also sacked from the role. This is deja vu from Woodward's time.

Hope the new football structure now have a proper plan how to support ETH to make us success again. If not head have to roll, we can't tolerate this BS anymore. Only Woodward was gone the rest of the people like Arnold and Murtough still in the club.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Jose wasn't a top manager ? Toxic shite players will down tools everywhere, its just that top managers move them out of the club before they start the rot.



Our players are not top 4 material let alone challenging or winning silverware.

The players downed tools for ole and rangnick in the space of a few months.

Even though our players finished 3rd and 2nd, they're not top 4 material?

Finished 2nd under Jose too with some of the players we have now.

Like what? How long will you guys continue to absolve managers?

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Doing pretty well when not managing a bunch of cnuts.

Don't bring up facts here.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Are you watching?

Just put this as your tag line

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Jose wasn't a top manager ? Toxic shite players will down tools everywhere, its just that top managers move them out of the club before they start the rot.



Our players are not top 4 material let alone challenging or winning silverware.

The players downed tools for ole and rangnick in the space of a few months.

Agreed with all of this.

 

[::sonny::]

Just put this as your tag line

 

[GuyfromAustria]

He's a good fit for our squad. As bad as his time at United was, our national team's previous manager was very poor and it's great that we got Rangnick instead.
It's incredibly weird to follow this train wreck of a season Utd had, only to see the manager move to your country a couple days later, bringing joy and enthusiam to the players, fans and media within a handful games and being hailed as the messiah everywhere.

 

[Dancfc]

He's a good fit for our squad. As bad as his time at United was, our national team's previous manager was very poor and it's great that we got Rangnick instead.
It's incredibly weird to follow this train wreck of a season Utd had, only to see the manager move to your country a couple days later, bringing joy and enthusiam to the players, fans and media within a handful games and being hailed as the messiah everywhere.

I think he'd have been a decent fit for the England national team aswell.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

You can't really praise Rangnick for doing a good job with an NT that he's been managing for 5 minutes if you were also claiming that he needed to be hired for six months at United to "implement a pressing system" for "the next manager."

 

[giorno]

Those are facts. But it's also fact that Madrid didn't buy a direct replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo after just winning the UCL and isn't even on the top 20 spenders on transfer fees over the past 5 years or so.

And they also won 5 UCLs with more or less the same key players, replacing Ronaldo with a player they signed as a 16 (?) year old.

Sounds clearly like long term focus for me.

You wanna know why we didn't sign a replacement for Cristiano? Part of it was trusting Bale, but mostly? Long term strategy to eventually sign Mbappé. Long term planning. That went well...

 

[SalfordRed18]

Lads the man recommended we buy 10 new players if we wanted to start competing again. Thats utter bollocks and his job was done from that moment on.

He quite simply didn't do a good job at United and we've parted ways. Why do people insist on bringing him up in a sorta I told you so way after every decent result?

He was terrible at united, that's what you should care about.

 

[Ted Lasso]

You can't really praise Rangnick for doing a good job with an NT that he's been managing for 5 minutes if you were also claiming that he needed to be hired for six months at United to "implement a pressing system" for "the next manager."

It's not like that. A lot of the observant United fans recognized an immediate impact in Rangnick's very first game. It looked very very promising and different from the last several seasons. Clearly his instructions.

But then the team stopped playing like that in subsequent games, Rangnick publicly noted and leaks revealed that players were no longer playing as advised, that the high press system had to be shelved and that the season became sort of a wash.

If this were the first manager to have issues with player power, it could be passed off as nonsense. But it's been a longstanding and publicly issue across several.

This is not to say Rangnick is an incredible top top manager like Pep. It's just to soften the one sided criticism which isn't just unfair but completely ignores the reality of what happens.

Austria seeming more cohesive and functional is more a sign that the players are humble professionals that respect a new manager rather than a conclusive statement of Rangnicks managerial talent.

 

[city-puma]

It's not like that. A lot of the observant United fans recognized an immediate impact in Rangnick's very first game. It looked very very promising and different from the last several seasons. Clearly his instructions.

But then the team stopped playing like that in subsequent games, Rangnick publicly noted and leaks revealed that players were no longer playing as advised, that the high press system had to be shelved and that the season became sort of a wash.

If this were the first manager to have issues with player power, it could be passed off as nonsense. But it's been a longstanding and publicly issue across several.

This is not to say Rangnick is an incredible top top manager like Pep. It's just to soften the one sided criticism which isn't just unfair but completely ignores the reality of what happens.

Austria seeming more cohesive and functional is more a sign that the players are humble professionals that respect a new manager rather than a conclusive statement of Rangnicks managerial talent.

It’s one of the greatest puzzles for me to hear people keep saying how wonderful the first 30 mins against crystal palace we had played. We didn’t create many clear cut opportunities during that phase. It’s far from superb at all.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

Jose wasn't a top manager ? Toxic shite players will down tools everywhere, its just that top managers move them out of the club before they start the rot.



Our players are not top 4 material let alone challenging or winning silverware.

The players downed tools for ole and rangnick in the space of a few months.

We ended second with Ole though and people do not rate Ole as a manager.

Let's face it Rangrick is a shit manager for sure.

 

[do.ob]

You can't really praise Rangnick for doing a good job with an NT that he's been managing for 5 minutes if you were also claiming that he needed to be hired for six months at United to "implement a pressing system" for "the next manager."

The difference is that Austria and RB Salzburg are basically the same and even the players, who didn't come through their academy, all played in Bundesliga. Rangnick could not have asked for a better setup. It's almost like when he switched to the coaching bench for Leipzig from his director role.

 

[flappyjay]

Even though our players finished 3rd and 2nd, they're not top 4 material?

Finished 2nd under Jose too with some of the players we have now.

Like what? How long will you guys continue to absolve managers?

Even when we have had good results our tactics and plays style has always been below par. I don't know how managers continue to get the benefit of the doubt even though we have bought around 40 players post Sir Alex.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

You wanna know why we didn't sign a replacement for Cristiano? Part of it was trusting Bale, but mostly? Long term strategy to eventually sign Mbappé. Long term planning. That went well...

Yep, sometimes things don’t go to plan and you just fall into luck. Perez was moaning about the Premier League, pushing the Super League, moaning about PSG ruining football etc with Mbappé. Then Real Madrid with the league and CL double and he calls it the perfect season.

He couldn’t have imagined Modric would still be going for example after De Jong and Ajax gave him the absolute runaround in 2019. And who could have thought in 2018 that Benzema would win the Ballon d’Or in 2022 at his age?

 

[Yakuza_devils]

1) Rangnick was employed to play gegenpressing with a team that never play the system before and also well known to be having one of the worst fitness level in EPL.

2) He was also not allowed to sign any player even though he lost some important players in Jan especially Greenwood and many of the players not suitable to his system.

3) He also needs to fight off toxic dressing room and player's power as an "interim". He got no chance at all. The players refused to listen or follow his instructions because they were not used to work so hard. Double training sessions were called off, players refused to run and press. Jogging all over the pitch. Took holidays during the season where important matches coming up (with the board's approval).

4) Players throwing Rangnick down the bus and leaks after leaks to the press to undermine him. They even reverted back to Ole system after a few weeks. No gegenpressing at all. This clearly shows that the players have no respect at all for the manager. Ole was sacked but the players keep his playing style because it required less workrate. Rangnick's gegenpressing was out of the window.

Why are we surprised that so many managers had failed so badly at Man Utd? So many managers were being thrown under the bus. Our club is a Disneyland. The board or football structure have to do much more to support the manager.

And finally after all these he was also sacked from consultant roles where he is known to be best at.

 

[stevoc]

It's not like that. A lot of the observant United fans recognized an immediate impact in Rangnick's very first game. It looked very very promising and different from the last several seasons. Clearly his instructions.

But then the team stopped playing like that in subsequent games, Rangnick publicly noted and leaks revealed that players were no longer playing as advised, that the high press system had to be shelved and that the season became sort of a wash.

If this were the first manager to have issues with player power, it could be passed off as nonsense. But it's been a longstanding and publicly issue across several.

This is not to say Rangnick is an incredible top top manager like Pep. It's just to soften the one sided criticism which isn't just unfair but completely ignores the reality of what happens.

This whole theory that the players followed Ralf's instructions to press for half an hour then collectively during the middle of a match decided it was too hard and just didn't do it anymore has always sounded like nonsense.

It's much more likely that Rangnick noted how quickly they tired while playing that way and between that and more taining sessions realized this squad wasn't set-up to play a high pressing game and/or wasn't fit enough to switch to that style mid-season after playing virtually without much of a break for 2 years straight because of Covid fecking with the seasons. So Ralf made the decision to try to adapt more to the way the squad had been playing.

Austria seeming more cohesive and functional is more a sign that the players are humble professionals that respect a new manager rather than a conclusive statement of Rangnicks managerial talent.

It's more of a sign that the majority of the squad play in the Bundesliga and/or the Reb Bull teams and are all very well versed in Rangnick's pressing game.

 

[stevoc]

1) Rangnick was employed to play gegenpressing with a team that never play the system before and also well known to be having one of the worst fitness level in EPL.

2) He was also not allowed to sign any player even though he lost some important players in Jan especially Greenwood and many of the players not suitable to his system.

3) He also needs to fight off toxic dressing room and player's power as an "interim". He got no chance at all. The players refused to listen or follow his instructions because they were not used to work so hard. Double training sessions were called off, players refused to run and press. Jogging all over the pitch. Took holidays during the season where important matches coming up (with the board's approval).

4) Players throwing Rangnick down the bus and leaks after leaks to the press to undermine him. They even reverted back to Ole system after a few weeks. No gegenpressing at all. This clearly shows that the players have no respect at all for the manager. Ole was sacked but the players keep his playing style because it required less workrate. Rangnick's gegenpressing was out of the window.

Why are we surprised that so many managers had failed so badly at Man Utd? So many managers were being thrown under the bus. Our club is a Disneyland. The board or football structure have to do much more to support the manager.

And finally after all these he was also sacked from consultant roles where he is known to be best at.

Does that narrative fit with the fairly wide spread reports from a few sources now that the players were not happy that they were being given way too many days off. With Rangnick randomly deciding to call off training and recovery sessions?

 

[Ted Lasso]

It’s one of the greatest puzzles for me to hear people keep saying how wonderful the first 30 mins against crystal palace we had played. We didn’t create many clear cut opportunities during that phase. It’s far from superb at all.

I know some people have maybe phrased it in a way to seem that way. But I think the intention was that they noticed the execution of Ralfs specific style that he is known for. It very objectively didn't work wonders that match. But you could tell that the system was what everyone was expecting.

That the system was binned and no longer seen afterwards in the same way is the focus. Not the results. Again, I definitely want to distinguish implementation of tactics from being successful with those tactics.

That subtlety is required in this discussion

 

[sebsheep]

Lads the man recommended we buy 10 new players if we wanted to start competing again. Thats utter bollocks and his job was done from that moment on.

He quite simply didn't do a good job at United and we've parted ways. Why do people insist on bringing him up in a sorta I told you so way after every decent result?

He was terrible at united, that's what you should care about.

Yeah tbf 10 is way too low.

 

[Robbie Boy]

What. A. Hero.

Gwan Ralf!!!

 

[Abraxas]

1) Rangnick was employed to play gegenpressing with a team that never play the system before and also well known to be having one of the worst fitness level in EPL.

2) He was also not allowed to sign any player even though he lost some important players in Jan especially Greenwood and many of the players not suitable to his system.

3) He also needs to fight off toxic dressing room and player's power as an "interim". He got no chance at all. The players refused to listen or follow his instructions because they were not used to work so hard. Double training sessions were called off, players refused to run and press. Jogging all over the pitch. Took holidays during the season where important matches coming up (with the board's approval).

4) Players throwing Rangnick down the bus and leaks after leaks to the press to undermine him. They even reverted back to Ole system after a few weeks. No gegenpressing at all. This clearly shows that the players have no respect at all for the manager. Ole was sacked but the players keep his playing style because it required less workrate. Rangnick's gegenpressing was out of the window.

Why are we surprised that so many managers had failed so badly at Man Utd? So many managers were being thrown under the bus. Our club is a Disneyland. The board or football structure have to do much more to support the manager.

And finally after all these he was also sacked from consultant roles where he is known to be best at.

You make some good points but some seems to translate as being an apologist for Ralf.

For example, you say he was employed to employ gegenpressing. I would argue he was employed to arrest the decline under Ole and get one or two results. Maybe finish 4th. One is pie in the sky stuff that requires suitable players and a length of time to implement, the other is straight forward and tallies with being a 6 month interim manager. He and the club might put out PR about his style, but ultimately what is tangible and has the most impact on how he's judged is whether you win football matches. So to me saying something about gegenpressing doesn't mitigate.

Yes he wasn't "allowed" to sign players. But we weren't asking for him to win the league. We were asking for him to improve results, and get us into the CL. There should have been the resources available to do that, particularly given the favourable Xmas run which cost us massively.

 

[Beans]

This whole theory that the players followed Ralf's instructions to press for half an hour then collectively during the middle of a match decided it was too hard and just didn't do it anymore has always sounded like nonsense.

It's much more likely that Rangnick noted how quickly they tired while playing that way and between that and more taining sessions realized this squad wasn't set-up to play a high pressing game and/or wasn't fit enough to switch to that style mid-season after playing virtually without much of a break for 2 years straight because of Covid fecking with the seasons. So Ralf made the decision to try to adapt more to the way the squad had been playing.



It's more of a sign that the majority of the squad play in the Bundesliga and/or the Reb Bull teams and are all very well versed in Rangnick's pressing game.

Rangnick told the press several times the players weren't following instructions, iirc.

 

[Beans]

Lads the man recommended we buy 10 new players if we wanted to start competing again. Thats utter bollocks and his job was done from that moment on.

He quite simply didn't do a good job at United and we've parted ways. Why do people insist on bringing him up in a sorta I told you so way after every decent result?

He was terrible at united, that's what you should care about.

We have to replace: Greenwood, Pogba, Mata, Lingard, Cavani & Matic, that's 6. AWB and McTominay need replacing too, that's 8. Martial and Rashford are out of favor, Telles and Dalot unsuccessful backups, I could easily see us being able to utilize 10 new players.

Maybe it's not possible to sign that many, maybe it was career suicide to say it out loud. But I don't see how it's bollox.

 

[VidaRed]

Even though our players finished 3rd and 2nd, they're not top 4 material?

Finished 2nd under Jose too with some of the players we have now.

Like what? How long will you guys continue to absolve managers?

We ended second with Ole though and people do not rate Ole as a manager.

Let's face it Rangrick is a shit manager for sure.

Why did we go down the shitter this season then so much so that ole had to be sacked ? Same manager same players, why not repeat the same feat ? Maybe the same extraordinary circumstances weren't around or maybe our rivals weren't having a mare ?

Its not like ole was a genius last season and fell of a cliff this season, ole was the same, the players simply downed tools and threw him under the bus. Then they proceeded to do the same with his successor.

Neither manager was top class but neither was so shite that we got tanked by watford, performances like that are solely on the players no matter who the manager is. We weren't getting crushed by relegation fodder and mid table teams because ole or rangnick got outmaneuvered tactically, it never went to that stage. We lost because the players didn't put in a shift. Its as simple as that.

They'll do the same with ten hag, unless ten hag shows them the exit door.

 

[SalfordRed18]

We have to replace: Greenwood, Pogba, Mata, Lingard, Cavani & Matic, that's 6. AWB and McTominay need replacing too, that's 8. Martial and Rashford are out of favor, Telles and Dalot unsuccessful backups, I could easily see us being able to utilize 10 new players.

Maybe it's not possible to sign that many, maybe it was career suicide to say it out loud. But I don't see how it's bollox.

Pogba, Mata, lingard, matic and cavani (atleast last season) barely played the last two years. The teams that got 3rd and 2nd and got to the final of the Europa league barely had any of those players listed.

Quite simply, it was a terrible take by him to suggest we need 10 new outfield players to compete when the team finished 2nd and 3rd previous seasons. It's not feasible nor is it strictly true.

99% of the squads for top teams you could improve on atleast 10 players, that's the nature of having a squad. You're not going not 10 new players though, that's ridiculous.

 

[devips]

He is gone for good now. Good riddance, and let it stay that way.

 

[stevoc]

Rangnick told the press several times the players weren't following instructions, iirc.

Do you have those quotes?

Also did he specify which players weren't following instructions and which instructions weren't being followed, did he specify?

The only quote I remember from him about players ignoring instructions was when he was annoyed that some of the second string players kept playing passes into dangerous areas against Young Boys.

Because some players not following some instructions is not the same as the entire squad deciding after 30 minutes that they weren't going to listen to Ralf anymore and just play how they like. If the standard of professionalism was that bad I imagine they wouldn't have even tried in the first place. And of course this whole theory relies on us believing that players like Varane, Bruno, DeGea, Ronaldo, Fred, Dalot, Sancho, Rashford, Maguire, Shaw, McTominay, Matic etc. are all really unprofessional.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

the players simply downed tools and threw him under the bus. Then they proceeded to do the same with his successor.

Why?

 

[Zehner]

Do you have those quotes?

Also did he specify which players weren't following instructions and which instructions weren't being followed, did he specify?

The only quote I remember from him about players ignoring instructions was when he was annoyed that some of the second string players kept playing passes into dangerous areas against Young Boys.

Because some players not following some instructions is not the same as the entire squad deciding after 30 minutes that they weren't going to listen to Ralf anymore and just play how they like. If the standard of professionalism was that bad I imagine they wouldn't have even tried in the first place. And of course this whole theory relies on us believing that players like Varane, Bruno, DeGea, Ronaldo, Fred, Dalot, Sancho, Rashford, Maguire, Shaw, McTominay, Matic etc. are all really unprofessional.

I can't imagine that it looked like this either. Just ignoring his instructions and playing the Solskjaer "system" again would be almost open rebellion. That would've escalated far more than it did.

What I could imagine though is that the players lacked conviction. A pressing system has to be carried out with full consequence or it becomes very vulnerable, even if a few don't play their roles as they're supposed to. So there might have been fitness issues but probably also a few tampered players who secretly didn't want to work that hard and saw themselves as bigger than the system of the no name interim manager.

This would also fit to Rangnick demanding up to 10 new players and opting to sign footballers who are on their first or second contract and not established, so hungry for success and proving themselves.

 

[Foxbatt]

Ralf is no idiot. He is not going to tell two of the 3 forwards to press, one of the midfield player to press and the defense to stay back. I mean most of the CAF would instruct it either. The fact we mostly do this show that players or all the players are not following his instructions.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

The thing about 'following instructions' is that a lot of football is automatic, you're not out there just following instructions but playing from memory and instinct based on what you've been practicing every day, every week, every month, etc. The manager's job isn't to come up with the best instructions, but with methods that turn those ideas into memory/instinct for the player. So saying 'well it failed because they didn't follow my instruction' just seems like shifting blame.

 

[Ole's screen]

It's not like that. A lot of the observant United fans recognized an immediate impact in Rangnick's very first game. It looked very very promising and different from the last several seasons. Clearly his instructions.

But then the team stopped playing like that in subsequent games, Rangnick publicly noted and leaks revealed that players were no longer playing as advised, that the high press system had to be shelved and that the season became sort of a wash.

If this were the first manager to have issues with player power, it could be passed off as nonsense. But it's been a longstanding and publicly issue across several.

This is not to say Rangnick is an incredible top top manager like Pep. It's just to soften the one sided criticism which isn't just unfair but completely ignores the reality of what happens.

Austria seeming more cohesive and functional is more a sign that the players are humble professionals that respect a new manager rather than a conclusive statement of Rangnicks managerial talent.

Was his first 30 minutes against CP where we hardly created anything really better than say Ole’s first game against Cardiff where we scored 5?

 

[Ted Lasso]

Was his first 30 minutes against CP where we hardly created anything really better than say Ole’s first game against Cardiff where we scored 5?

You're not understanding my post. Little to nothing to do with the chances created.

 

[Foxbatt]

The thing about 'following instructions' is that a lot of football is automatic, you're not out there just following instructions but playing from memory and instinct based on what you've been practicing every day, every week, every month, etc. The manager's job isn't to come up with the best instructions, but with methods that turn those ideas into memory/instinct for the player. So saying 'well it failed because they didn't follow my instruction' just seems like shifting blame.

Exactly. So you are saying that they don't train his way but in a different way and then he asks them to play in a completely different way during the match?

 

[stevoc]

I can't imagine that it looked like this either. Just ignoring his instructions and playing the Solskjaer "system" again would be almost open rebellion. That would've escalated far more than it did.

What I could imagine though is that the players lacked conviction. A pressing system has to be carried out with full consequence or it becomes very vulnerable, even if a few don't play their roles as they're supposed to. So there might have been fitness issues but probably also a few tampered players who secretly didn't want to work that hard and saw themselves as bigger than the system of the no name interim manager.

This would also fit to Rangnick demanding up to 10 new players and opting to sign footballers who are on their first or second contract and not established, so hungry for success and proving themselves.

It could have been a lack of conviction and fitness issues. Either way it's clear Rangnick abandoned his pressing system after a few games and then his awful 4222 shortly after. Though to be fair to him he did say in his very first press conference that it would be very hard to implement his preferred style of play mid-season so he'd have to see how they adapt to it or words to that effect. But that doesn't fit with the narrative that has built up around Ralf, so it's been ignored.

 

[stevoc]

The thing about 'following instructions' is that a lot of football is automatic, you're not out there just following instructions but playing from memory and instinct based on what you've been practicing every day, every week, every month, etc. The manager's job isn't to come up with the best instructions, but with methods that turn those ideas into memory/instinct for the player. So saying 'well it failed because they didn't follow my instruction' just seems like shifting blame.

Well he did plenty of that in his 6 months at United.

 

[Ted Lasso]

The thing about 'following instructions' is that a lot of football is automatic, you're not out there just following instructions but playing from memory and instinct based on what you've been practicing every day, every week, every month, etc. The manager's job isn't to come up with the best instructions, but with methods that turn those ideas into memory/instinct for the player. So saying 'well it failed because they didn't follow my instruction' just seems like shifting blame.

You've hit the nail on the head. Leaks were suggesting the players not listening started at practice itself. Certain players complaining it should be "fun". We aren't privy to a whole lot behind the scenes but it seems like the on-pitch issues were very much related to issues the management team was having with the players starting on the training ground.

And this definitely feels like it started well before Rangnick. Ole dropped many a hint here and there. Jose especially so.