Ralf Rangnick's consultancy role has been scrapped

[Halftrack]

It was a weird time looking back. Like when people believed he was writing a dossier on every player to hand over to Ten Hag.

Or that he, in his ill-defined consultancy, which would reportedly entail him being available for days each month, would act as the de facto DoF.

A lot of yarn was spun by people who had convinced themselves he was a genius visionary who was going to save us.

 

[Jordi Cruyff 99]

I find it hard to disagree with anything that Rangnick said at the time. Everything was reasonable and he is clearly highly intelligent for a football professional and it is not hard to see how he would clash with players who are emotional, driven by materialism, who have a lack of integrity, and are nowhere near as good as they think they are. His man management clearly was not conducive to winning over these types of players. A league cup victory hardly papers over the cracks. Unfortunately, next season will be much of the same. The club is still miles off a genuine league title assault. I have a lot of time for Rangnick.

 

[Halftrack]

What he said gets exaggerated quite significantly at times. The last two lines are the main part, but the rest of what he said is relevant for context.



So basically that we had to get the manager and decide how the team was supposed to play, and then build a squad towards that goal. Considering we've already signed seven, likely about to be eight from the Hojlund reports, for ETH and quite heavily linked with a 9th (Amrabat), he obviously wasn't wrong. If anything he was underselling it. Especially when taking into account an argument could be made that we would still need another CB, RB, DM, RM and ST.

That's not to say that what he said was some amazing bit of management. It was actually quite obvious that the entire squad needed a significant rebuild so it's not something that strongly works in his favour. It's just also not something that is negative either. Hell, depending on what was happening behind the scenes (if the people above him were saying that the squad was mostly fine and only needed a tweak) it actually might have been good for him to come out and say it.

The quote is often presented, by detractors and defenders alike, as him saying the team was so shit you'd need 10 new players to make it decent again. But he said 6-10, and his main reason was that so many were going to be out of contract.

He was a terrible manager, and a waste of time overall, but the "10 players" bit wasn't him bravely speaking truth to power about our shambles of a squad, it was him making the observation that 4 first teamers were out of contract that summer, probably the MG situation, in addition to existing holes and certain players not being of the desired standard.

 

[Abraxas]

He didn't offer anything because we wouldn't listen to him. That was made clear in the transfer window and cemented the failure of his time as manager when everyone from Ronaldo to Henderson realised they could do whatever they wanted.

He has been and still would be a great figure to have in the club management but it's obvious a few of his home truths didn't go down well with those they were aimed at.

Probably because there was nothing worth listening to from the football clubs perspective. He made a lot of noise but failed to direct his noise effectively to where it would have been useful at the time. Motivating and organising his players. The most incisive things he seemed to deliver were at press conferences and that's not a good thing as a football manager.

We can all deliver "home truths." It's like those people that boldy profess how much truth they tell and if anyone doesn't like it then, well, "that's me, take it or leave it." Well, great..but your job was to manage a football team and from that build credibility that would suggest you should be kept as consultant. Not doing that is why he's now managing a middling international team and not delivering any more home truths at press conferences.

Ultimately there wasn't anything of value there to throw our weight behind. Anyone can lambast players and say we need 10 signings. ETH knew that but he had the diplomacy and self awareness to know how to operate at this level and be effective.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

If you're going to recycle threads then I'm going to recycle shit videos.

 

[stevoc]

Malacia was the fifth. And considering Rangnick was talking about the squad as a whole and what options other teams had off the bench, the fact that we had to go to the loan market to replace players that we unexpectedly lost as opposed to actually having suitable players already is relevant.

Fair point with Sancho, although he and Elanga were alternating on the right up until we signed Antony. The games I originally looked at were the ones Elanga played so Sancho slipped my mind (which isn't exactly a great testament to him ).

Right you are mate I completely forgot about him.

We lost Cavani, Greenwood, Ronaldo in a short space of time and Martial was perma crocked which explains the need to get Weghorst on loan.

Then we lost Donny and Eriksen for virtually the season from January onwards which explains Sabitzer.

Not saying the squad is/was great but most teams would be getting someone in on loan in similar circumstances.

 

[Swedish_Plumber]

Why are we still talking about this guy?

 

[mu4c_20le]

Why are we still talking about this guy?

He said some things that turned out to be true.

Now he is Jesus

 

[tomaldinho1]

What a time to be alive, that was. A season being managed, split between Ole and Ralf

It already feels like it was a fever dream thankfully. In a few years I’ll refuse to believe it existed.

 

[glazed]

He said some things that turned out to be true.

Most of what he said was true. But he had no ability to make the team better without ditching loads of players. His attempt at high press football was doomed.

 

[Adnan]

Rangnick the visionary gets another prediction spot on with ten Hag making McTominay captain for the game against Dortmund.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[georgipep]

Rangnick the visionary gets another prediction spot on with ten Hag making McTominay captain for the game against Dortmund.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I was unpleasantly surprised to see none of him, Maguire and Lindelöf to come and protect Forson in the bust up with Adeyemi.
I expected him to come and size up against the Dortmund players.