From all accounts he's been asked to take an interim managerial role with a responsibility of auditing the team and the club to an extent, with the aim of later moving upstairs.
How can Ralf have an important behind the scenes role and at the same time have feck all influence on who stays?
not that it even matters, player performances and overall behavior will still have consequences, interim manager doesn’t mean players have a free pass to do whatever they want.
Ralf has continually said he's given feedback to the board regarding the squad and by the looks of the performances it would seem that most of the squad don’t like what he's said. The cushy times are all but over and the players are having to deal with the harsh reality of no longer having all the power. Ralf's been pretty open about United's poor recruitment and how all these players don't fit any one system, which mean's they have to go, so a bunch of them probably feel unfairly targeted for reasons out of their control.
All this accumulates in the current state of joint apathy we have at the club, and if this wasn't the case one of the players agents would have called him out by now.