Bear with me a bit on how I think Rangnick's step-down from his consultancy role was inevitable. And this is NOT another Rangnick-bashing post like many others. I'm quite bored of those really. Sometimes things don't work out just because of their nature, not because of anyone's faults.
Looking back at this whole prospect of Ralf's consultancy, may be things just weren't meant to be. Regarding players recruitment, Ralf mostly suggested Bundesliga gems, while Ten Hag seems to prefer nimble, technical players from Holland/Erendivisie (I'm not even mentioning another side that is our scouts's recommendation which consists mostly British players or trendy Premier League "proven" stars). They were all destined to clash at some points.
Rangnick's vision seems to be building a squad of 18 tireless workhorses, with an average age of 24. They are not superstars (May be just players in the Fred category) but all function like ONE BRAIN with eleven pair of legs. They would mostly press for the ball high-up on the pitch and immediately progress the ball vertically within 10 seconds. This seems good in theory and would make us a versatile squad with similar core strength to Liverpool, hence the rumours of Bundesliga gems like Nkunku, Haidara...
On the contrary, Ten Hag seems to prefer his team having fluent buildup from the back (More similar to City than Liverpool). If we believe in the transfer rumours, here is what Ten Hag wants:
- 1 DLF (De Jong)
- 1 CDM (Kante)
- 1 CB (Pau Torres)
- 1 RB (Timber)
- 1 CF (Nunez)
- 1 RW (Bergwijn, Antony)
It is not hard to picture to an extent the kind of football Ten Hag wants to build here. How successful it would be is still a question. But you can see the difference in football progression ideas of Ralf Rangnick and Erik ten Hag. With Steve McClaren and Mitchell van der Gaag as assistants, Erik predictably thinks he has not much of a use for Rangnick. That's fair game. Ralf has already fulfilled his other job to the club of listing his input on the organizational structure and players's reports (To Ten Hag) anyway.
Rangnick has no chance of being a DOF (Murtough is the closest one of our own version of a DOF), and he is not a Technical Director either (Fletcher's role). So we can kinda see the writing was on the wall when our deal with Paul Mitchell fell through. That could have been a political move from Rangnick to bring more football experts with close ties to him to the club and further consolidate his soft power. That deal falling through signaled Rangnick's failure in this game of gaining soft influence within United's organization. Ten Hag, being a man with such strong personality, will predictably have very little interaction with Rangnick, much less actually weighing Rangnick's words more than 50% of all his decisions.
There is no need for ill will towards Rangnick like I've seen in this thread. Losing the "game of thrones" or not, he is the man who genuinely wanted CHANGES at this club, which our fans have also wished for. You can say his method and antics were too drastic. But that may have been a necessary extreme to counter the over-simplified version of Vibes-FC antics from Ole's era before. This club needed changes, not patting on backs all the time. Him rocking the boat fastened that process, whether the board wanted it or not. I choose to look at that as his mark in the United's history. "Worst season in the history"? Even if that really is, I'd take this season if it enables all of United as a whole to open the eyes to the truth. No more burying our heads in the sand, thinking things will magically get better just because we convince ourselves football goes in cycles. The answer is no. Football goes with merits.