Ralf Rangnick's consultancy role has been scrapped

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You also seem to really, really want the last word. But again, I offer you the chance to answer my question and continue the discussion in a constructive manner if you so wish to.

I think you're projecting mate. Only one way to prove you're not though. ;)


I wouldn't, stevoc is Homer Simpson and I'm no Drederick Tatum.

How dare you! :lol:
 
I think you only have to look at our choice of manager since SAF to see how evidently true that is. Moyes was very different from SAF, LvG was a world away from Moyes, Mourinho was the antithesis tactically of LvG, Solskjaer the polar opposite of Mourinho in terms of personality and methods. Now you have EtH who is completely different again. There's no continuity in that and no room for managerial failure.

Managers will inevitably fail, that shouldn't have been so destructive to our squad building as it has been.

I find this thought so stupidly ridiculous. Neville talks about it sometimes as well. What on earth should we do?

With Moyes we went for a British, premier league, mid table good manager who might bring that sort of longevity to United. It failed. What should we have done gone on to sign southgate, then Alan Pardrew and Mark Hughes? It didn't work which is why we changed it.

Same with the move to Mourinho. We wanted instant success. Didn't work. Should we have kept chopping and changing till we got the "instant success manager"?

Why is learning from your mistakes a bad thing. Just the silliest argument I've seen.
 
I find this thought so stupidly ridiculous. Neville talks about it sometimes as well. What on earth should we do?

With Moyes we went for a British, premier league, mid table good manager who might bring that sort of longevity to United. It failed. What should we have done gone on to sign southgate, then Alan Pardrew and Mark Hughes? It didn't work which is why we changed it.

Same with the move to Mourinho. We wanted instant success. Didn't work. Should we have kept chopping and changing till we got the "instant success manager"?

Why is learning from your mistakes a bad thing. Just the silliest argument I've seen.
The sign of a good, well run club is you don't make those mistakes in the first place. You admit yourself that they were mistakes, which undermines the entire argument.

A club with a clear vision doesn't start with Moyes, whatever failure Moyes was it wasn't because stylistically he was too far away from LvG. It's incoherent.

I think you're projecting mate. Only one way to prove you're not though. ;)

How dare you! :lol:
:rolleyes: still dodging any attempt at a constructive conversation I see.

I could have gone with a Weeble I suppose.
 
A club with a clear vision doesn't start with Moyes, whatever failure Moyes was it wasn't because stylistically he was too far away from LvG. It's incoherent.

A club with a clear vision doesn't replace Carlo Ancelotti with Rafa Benitez either. Yet Real Madrid did that and it didn't stop them from winning 3 CLs in a row (once they fired Benitez, that is).


I think this idea of needing detailed, philosophical, long-term plans to succeed is a bit overrated. I can't even remember the last time Real Madrid sold a player because they "did not fit the way we want to play" or signed a manager to keep some kind of playing style consistency. Great players who aren't so limited will work in multiple systems.
 
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The sign of a good, well run club is you don't make those mistakes in the first place. You admit yourself that they were mistakes, which undermines the entire argument.

A club with a clear vision doesn't start with Moyes, whatever failure Moyes was it wasn't because stylistically he was too far away from LvG. It's incoherent.


I could have gone with a Weeble I suppose.

Name me clubs you think are successful and I’ll list out the managers.

You’re living in some fools paradise if you think clubs are run on such a scientific level where even making a mistake to appoint a manager isn’t allowed.

Even Arsenal appointment Arteta after Unai who are quite different and it’s working alright
 
A club with a clear vision doesn't replace Carlo Ancelotti with Rafa Benitez either. Yet Real Madrid did that and it didn't stop them from winning 3 CLs in a row (once they fired Benitez, that is).

I think this idea of needing detailed, philosophical, long-term plans to succeed is a bit overrated. I can't even remember the last time Real Madrid sold a player because they "did not fit the way we want to play" or signed a manager to keep some kind of playing style consistency. Great players who aren't so limited will work in multiple systems.
And Madrid clearly fecked up there, I don't think anyone would deny that. They also fecked up with Lopetegui, but since Capello their hit rate has been pretty damn decent and coherent.

Name me clubs you think are successful and I’ll list out the managers.

You’re living in some fools paradise if you think clubs are run on such a scientific level where even making a mistake to appoint a manager isn’t allowed.

Even Arsenal appointment Arteta after Unai who are quite different and it’s working alright
Making a mistake happens, making 5 in a row (including Rangnick) isn't. That's a lack of understanding of what you want from a manager. Barcelona have made mistakes, but they've at least had a consistent vision with most of their managers for decades. Even Ajax feck up, de Boer and the current guy come to mind, but they have to deal with constant poaching of players and managers and they do consistently far better than we do.

I'd struggle to find a club that bounces between stylistically disparate managers in remotely the same way we do, at least good ones.
 
:rolleyes: still dodging any attempt at a constructive conversation I see.

I could have gone with a Weeble I suppose.

:lol:

And there it is.

Constructive conversation? :) Yeah I tried that at first mate but there's only so much waffle I can read before I realize there's no point.
 
This is the fecking worst e-fight of all time and it's been going on about a week now :lol:

:lol:

It definitely is, at this point I just want to see how many repetitive posts he'll make in an attempt to get the last word in.
 
Making a mistake happens, making 5 in a row (including Rangnick) isn't. That's a lack of understanding of what you want from a manager. Barcelona have made mistakes, but they've at least had a consistent vision with most of their managers for decades. Even Ajax feck up, de Boer and the current guy come to mind, but they have to deal with constant poaching of players and managers and they do consistently far better than we do.

I'd struggle to find a club that bounces between stylistically disparate managers in remotely the same way we do, at least good ones.

Again give me an example of a successful club then. This is a silly point that we can’t go 5 managers who don’t win us the league.

If we somehow stuck to one of them this whole time having some grand “plan” that makes us better ?

I just want you to tell me who you consider a well run club
 
I don't think I've ever seen a person do so little for United yet leave so much of a mark. Not even Solskjaer is creating this much noise.

I don't know what hold Wreck-It has on some people but fair play to him. Mods should just close this thread. His time here is done, thank feck.
 
:lol:

And there it is.

Constructive conversation? :) Yeah I tried that at first mate but there's only so much waffle I can read before I realize there's no point.
If you step away from the Rangnick thing you must see the fundamental difference between a DoF delegating work he's expected to delegate because it's not part of his role to actually do them, and bringing in someone to do work the DoF is expected to do?
 
Again give me an example of a successful club then. This is a silly point that we can’t go 5 managers who don’t win us the league.

If we somehow stuck to one of them this whole time having some grand “plan” that makes us better ?

I just want you to tell me who you consider a well run club
We've talked about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ajax, Juventus all have 'mistakes' where are the abnormality and not the norm. Even Chelsea for most of their successful period had something vaguely approaching a consistent strategy (Sarri seems to be catnip to this, amusingly).
 
And Madrid clearly fecked up there, I don't think anyone would deny that. They also fecked up with Lopetegui.

Real Madrid have only had 5 managers since 2013. So two out of five is almost half. The other three are Ancelotti, Zidane, and Solari. The latter is probably a mistake too so that's 60% of managers.
 
Real Madrid have only had 5 managers since 2013. So two out of five is almost half. The other three are Ancelotti, Zidane, and Solari. The latter is probably a mistake too so that's 60% of managers.
Solari wasn't a mistake from a stylistic point of view. 60% is a lot better than 0%.
 
If you step away from the Rangnick thing you must see the fundamental difference between a DoF delegating work he's expected to delegate because it's not part of his role to actually do them, and bringing in someone to do work the DoF is expected to do?

Yes they're two different things. Rangnick's role would have fallen under the former not the latter though.
 
We've talked about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ajax, Juventus all have 'mistakes' where are the abnormality and not the norm. Even Chelsea for most of their successful period had something vaguely approaching a consistent strategy (Sarri seems to be catnip to this, amusingly).

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding here but which are the "norm" where there is one consistent style of managers and they win trophy after trophy without changing it up.

Are you saying Chelsea? Do you mean post Mourinho? Surely not because there was no consistency in style there at all: Mourinho, Grant, Scholari, Hiddink, Ancelotti, Boas, Di Matteo, Benitez, Mourinho part II, Conte, Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel, Potter.

Please find me a pattern there and if not Chelsea, any club that you claim is "well run".
 
I don't think I've ever seen a person do so little for United yet leave so much of a mark. Not even Solskjaer is creating this much noise.

I don't know what hold Wreck-It has on some people but fair play to him. Mods should just close this thread. His time here is done, thank feck.

He speak about pressing and half pregnant and something about training freekicks 30 percent of the time and people gobble that up
 
Yes they're two different things. Rangnick's role would have fallen under the former not the latter though.
Excellent. Thanks for answering.

So the obvious question is exactly who do we think the skills the Rangnick consultancy was hoped to bring in were replacing/supplementing, if not Murtaugh's?

When asked about it when the Austria job came up he identified two areas 'recruitment' - "That is the most important point that we bring in the best possible players speak about that and what that can be, it is not only identifying but meeting them convincing them to join the club even though we will not play in Champions League." and identifying academy players "Again, in regards to top players for the academy, identifying them, Mason Greenwood was probably one of the most talented players in the last couple of years, this is for me, in the next two or three years the most important part.".

You can discount scouts because they 1) aren't involved in convincing players to join the club, 2) aren't the ones who judge/identify academy talents. It's not (at least wholly, although I would certainly accept the argument that it is some) Fletcher's role, which doesn't involve any recruitment and seems to be hands on with the players and “Probably the key part of the role is taking a holistic view of the path for players from our academy to our first team".

I think the key point which sells it for me is the roles EtH has come in and taken over which seem quite outside the remit of a manager, he leads on recruitment targets and he is now heavily and directly involved in the academy. Both of those things fall within the remit of a DoF/sporting director/technical director (in the Ashworth at Brighton sense, not the "I don't know what my role is" Fletcher sense). In his defence he seems very good at that, the issue becomes if god forbid he doesn't work out as a manager and we have to sack him.
 
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding here but which are the "norm" where there is one consistent style of managers and they win trophy after trophy without changing it up.

Are you saying Chelsea? Do you mean post Mourinho? Surely not because there was no consistency in style there at all: Mourinho, Grant, Scolari, Hiddink, Ancelotti, Boas, Di Matteo, Benitez, Mourinho part II, Conte, Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel, Potter.

Please find me a pattern there and if not Chelsea, any club that you claim is "well run".
Every one of those managers not in bold is on the more pragmatic side who rely on strong defensive setup and a low/medium block with danger on the transitions. Ancelotti is a bit of a mixed bag who you can guarantee will come in and get a tune out of a good group of players so you can give him any team.

Even the last 4 you can argue mark a coherent and more progressive forward thinking structure (Tuchel while being defensively minded operated a mid block with more pressing).

It's telling that Ancelotti (and as I said, I think there's obvious caveats surrounding him being who he is) aside, the ones who have deviated from something of a safety first mindset have been really not good things for Chelsea. Between Mourinho (and you can go back to Ranieri really) and Sarri, Chelsea had 10 managers, 7 of whom made sense as a logical progression from the previous one (in terms of style at least, rather than quality) and one of the ones who didn't was a caretaker who fluked a CL.

Pre-Sarri Chelsea's only "wtf" appointment in terms of how they play is Scolari imo. He was never going to work with the group of players they had in 2008 and the way they had been playing for ever. It was the kind of appointment we'd have made around 2015, a big name who doesn't suit the players (although he would have suited us better than Chelsea).
 
Excellent. Thanks for answering.

So the obvious question is exactly who do we think the skills the Rangnick consultancy was hoped to bring in were replacing/supplementing, if not Murtaugh's?

When asked about it when the Austria job came up he identified two areas 'recruitment' - "That is the most important point that we bring in the best possible players speak about that and what that can be, it is not only identifying but meeting them convincing them to join the club even though we will not play in Champions League." and identifying academy players "Again, in regards to top players for the academy, identifying them, Mason Greenwood was probably one of the most talented players in the last couple of years, this is for me, in the next two or three years the most important part.".

You can discount scouts because they 1) aren't involved in convincing players to join the club, 2) aren't the ones who judge/identify academy talents. It's not (at least wholly, although I would certainly accept the argument that it is some) Fletcher's role, which doesn't involve any recruitment and seems to be hands on with the players and “Probably the key part of the role is taking a holistic view of the path for players from our academy to our first team".

I think the key point which sells it for me is the roles EtH has come in and taken over which seem quite outside the remit of a manager, he leads on recruitment targets and he is now heavily and directly involved in the academy. Both of those things fall within the remit of a DoF/sporting director/technical director (in the Ashworth at Brighton sense, not the "I don't know what my role is" Fletcher sense). In his defence he seems very good at that, the issue becomes if god forbid he doesn't work out as a manager and we have to sack him.

We've pretty much been over this already mate. He wasn't replacing anybody, arguably supplementing maybe but Murtagh wasn't bringing anyone into take his job. The club needed an experienced short term coach, Murtagh had a relationship with Rangnick, Ralf was tied up on a 3 year deal as a director in Russia. So 6 months as Interim manager and 2 years in a vague consultancy role to make up for his contract in Russia and everyone was happy.

Had he stayed at the club his role as has been reported most likely would have been a recruitment consultant for a few days a month, but it seems after a conversation with Ten Hag, that Erik decided their respective visions for future recruitment didn't mesh. And so Rangnick got paid off.

All the evidence points towards the most likely scenario being that Rangnick was never brought in with any real plan other than having him as the interim coach. And they would figure out his consultancy role at a later date, the transition between Woodward and Arnold probably further muddied the waters on that front. Reportedly it was Woodward's idea while it's possible Arnold either wasn't as keen or didn't see a significant role for him.
 
I don’t get why people are still talking about this guy. Nothing against him but I forgot he even existed when he left.
 
We've pretty much been over this already mate. He wasn't replacing anybody, arguably supplementing maybe but Murtagh wasn't bringing anyone into take his job. The club needed an experienced short term coach, Murtagh had a relationship with Rangnick, Ralf was tied up on a 3 year deal as a director in Russia. So 6 months as Interim manager and 2 years in a vague consultancy role to make up for his contract in Russia and everyone was happy.

Had he stayed at the club his role as has been reported most likely would have been a recruitment consultant for a few days a month, but it seems after a conversation with Ten Hag, that Erik decided their respective visions for future recruitment didn't mesh. And so Rangnick got paid off.

All the evidence points towards the most likely scenario being that Rangnick was never brought in with any real plan other than having him as the interim coach. And they would figure out his consultancy role at a later date, the transition between Woodward and Arnold probably further muddied the waters on that front. Reportedly it was Woodward's idea while it's possible Arnold either wasn't as keen or didn't see a significant role for him.
I think we can discount the idea that nobody knew what Rangnick would be doing and it was simply a deal sweetener to get him to agree to be caretaker considering he spoke about his role publicly during his tenure as caretaker. Not even United would agree to pay their caretaker almost £15m in wages over 2 and a half years if all they wanted was a 6 month caretaker role.

You highlight that he would be coming in as a recruitment consultant, he himself confirmed this so I think we can assume it to be true. He also identified the role as involving academy graduates as well, both of these are firmly in the remit of the DoF. So we're hiring a consultant to do the same work as a DoF, why would a DoF need a consultant working on the same jobs he is if not for some gap in skill set/experience in said DoF? This also makes sense given what Rangnick is famed for and what his job was before we hired him.

And I don't doubt EtH came in and said he could do those roles better than Rangnick and wanted him gone, the wisdom of allowing him to do that probably relies on his success as a manager long term, but I don't think either of us disagree on this.
 
We've pretty much been over this already mate. He wasn't replacing anybody, arguably supplementing maybe but Murtagh wasn't bringing anyone into take his job. The club needed an experienced short term coach, Murtagh had a relationship with Rangnick, Ralf was tied up on a 3 year deal as a director in Russia. So 6 months as Interim manager and 2 years in a vague consultancy role to make up for his contract in Russia and everyone was happy.

Had he stayed at the club his role as has been reported most likely would have been a recruitment consultant for a few days a month, but it seems after a conversation with Ten Hag, that Erik decided their respective visions for future recruitment didn't mesh. And so Rangnick got paid off.

All the evidence points towards the most likely scenario being that Rangnick was never brought in with any real plan other than having him as the interim coach. And they would figure out his consultancy role at a later date, the transition between Woodward and Arnold probably further muddied the waters on that front. Reportedly it was Woodward's idea while it's possible Arnold either wasn't as keen or didn't see a significant role for him.
This is exactly it, the whole story, nothing to add, nothing to speculate. Should be pinned at the top of the page so posters can stop going down the rabbit hole.
 
I don’t get why people are still talking about this guy. Nothing against him but I forgot he even existed when he left.
It's a strange obsession. You'd think he was Sacchi or Rinus Michaels, the way they still go on about him.
 
I don’t get why people are still talking about this guy. Nothing against him but I forgot he even existed when he left.
This is exactly it, the whole story, nothing to add, nothing to speculate. Should be pinned at the top of the page so posters can stop going down the rabbit hole.
There's this weird obsession with attributing the start of the revolution to this guy and acknowledging any kind of impact he had to the direction/decisions the club are now taking. When in reality he was by far the worst manager the club has seen in recent history and had zero clout/contribution to operations behind the scenes.

And all because he said "we need 10 new players...." during a press conference. It's just bizarre.
 
It's a strange obsession. You'd think he was Sacchi or Rinus Michaels, the way they still go on about him.
He was a guy that came to prominence in Germany via Helmut Groß. And it was Groß's methods that he copied and implemented at financially doped up clubs like Hoffenheim and the Red Bull clubs. Groß was the advisor/consultant to him and the board of directors at the clubs Rangnick worked at.

Rangnick didn't do anything out of the ordinary at the clubs he was at. All he did was create a football structure with the help of people like Groß and the billionaire owners at Hoffenheim and Red Bull.

And he could only support his head coaches in a DoF capacity if he was first himself supported by the heads of scouting at the clubs he worked at. If you don't have capable heads of scouting at the club, nothing will function for a DoF. A DoF can't support the manager/head coach without having capable recruiters at the top of the recruitment pyramid. That's why it's important for a DoF to select his own people at the top of the scouting pyramid and also select his own head coach.
 
He was a guy that came to prominence in Germany via Helmut Groß. And it was Groß's methods that he copied and implemented at financially doped up clubs like Hoffenheim and the Red Bull clubs. Groß was the advisor/consultant to him and the board of directors at the clubs Rangnick worked at.

Rangnick didn't do anything out of the ordinary at the clubs he was at. All he did was create a football structure with the help of people like Groß and the billionaire owners at Hoffenheim and Red Bull.

And he could only support his head coaches in a DoF capacity if he was first himself supported by the heads of scouting at the clubs he worked at. If you don't have capable heads of scouting at the club, nothing will function for a DoF. A DoF can't support the manager/head coach without having capable recruiters at the top of the recruitment pyramid. That's why it's important for a DoF to select his own people at the top of the scouting pyramid and also select his own head coach.
Your post ignores that Rangnick became prominent as a coach who had great success by implementing his at that time new and unique style in Germany (although mainly in the second league with Ulm and Hannover).

His work as a DoF came later.
 
Your post ignores that Rangnick became prominent as a coach who had great success by implementing his at that time new and unique style in Germany (although mainly in the second league with Ulm and Hannover).

His work as a DoF came later.
His style was possibly unique to Germany but it wasn't unique overall. And the particular style in question was the method that was developed by Helmut Groß in Germany and it came to prominence at Stuttgart where Groß had Rangnick under his wing. And the method in question involved pressing/counter pressing off the ball, which was referred to as the controlled chaos approach at Stuttgart.

And Rangnick implemented the approach into his coaching career and did the same whilst being a sporting director. And that approach stems from famous coaches from the past, but the difference was that coaches like Rinus Michels and Sacchi also developed a on the ball game which wasn't as pronounced with Helmut Groß and Rangnick who placed a over emphasis on pressing and counter pressing off the ball after admitting to watching footage of teams coached by the aforementioned names and Valeriy Lobanovskyi.

I've already said he was a good coach in the past. But unfortunately when the existing coaching staff is decimated with both Carrick and McKenna leaving upon his arrival, then you're in trouble. And you can't plan for stuff like that.
 
I don’t get why people are still talking about this guy. Nothing against him but I forgot he even existed when he left.
Because he was one of the best of his generation in putting together top rate squads and United squandered the chance of using his expertise.

He could of been a fantastic asset alongside ETH who as good a manager as he is just doesn't have the same experience.
 
I think we can discount the idea that nobody knew what Rangnick would be doing and it was simply a deal sweetener to get him to agree to be caretaker considering he spoke about his role publicly during his tenure as caretaker. Not even United would agree to pay their caretaker almost £15m in wages over 2 and a half years if all they wanted was a 6 month caretaker role.

The only thing the club said publicly on the matter was a vague consultancy role. So you can hardly say everyone knew what he would be doing.

You highlight that he would be coming in as a recruitment consultant, he himself confirmed this so I think we can assume it to be true. He also identified the role as involving academy graduates as well, both of these are firmly in the remit of the DoF. So we're hiring a consultant to do the same work as a DoF, why would a DoF need a consultant working on the same jobs he is if not for some gap in skill set/experience in said DoF? This also makes sense given what Rangnick is famed for and what his job was before we hired him.

Well he would be consulting the DOF, that's what consultants do.

And I don't doubt EtH came in and said he could do those roles better than Rangnick and wanted him gone, the wisdom of allowing him to do that probably relies on his success as a manager long term, but I don't think either of us disagree on this.

Well none of can know what was said in private and it how it transpired doesn't necessarily mean that ETH thought he could do everything better than Ralf. But in his first press conference Erik didn't say too much on what Rangnick's role working with him will be beyond that was for the club to decide, Ralf's role was scrapped shortly after. Then there were multiple stories that after speaking to Rangnick, Ten Hag informed the club they're idea's didn't mesh, as reportedly Rangnick didn't think we should pursue Eredivisie players as he didn't rate them and Ten Hag obviously disagreed seeing as we signed 3 of them.

It seems pretty obvious when you connect those dots.
 
I've changed my stance and I now fully support this e-fight. Seeing some froth at the mouth with this thread being bumped is actually quite enjoyable. Keep it going lads!
 
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