If the accusation most strongly labelled against Manchester United is that they lack an identity, they have certainly lurched in a new direction.
Ralf Rangnick is one of the pillars of modern coaching, formulating a pressing style that inspired the new wave of German managers who are increasingly influential on elite European football. More than anything, he demands that an identity – any identity – be the whole of the law.
Rangnick is a statement appointment as an interim boss, not least because it’s a bizarre job advert: stay for six months and then we’ll appoint someone we really want. He has a big reputation, a dossier of ideologies and a fierce eye for ensuring they are implemented. Jürgen Klopp calls him “one of, if not the, best German coach”, a handy tagline now. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer got the job because of who he was; Rangnick has got the job because of what he is.
That is a welcome change, because it suggests that United’s hierarchy are at least trying to move away from their obsession with romance and nostalgia. Football director John Murtough spent time in Leipzig, where Rangnick’s reputation was cemented, studying their on- and off-pitch model.
The presumed hope is to marry together two extremes: United as the historic club that allowed itself to root its identity in the past, RB Leipzig as arguably the most “modern” club in Europe. They had no history, but that was entirely the point; they had no emotional baggage either. That guaranteed them the blank canvas such a project required.
But United are not a blank canvas. They do have emotional baggage. They may have jettisoned a club-legend manager and may well target their next permanent coach based on their CV, but they also have a large squad of talented individuals who have proven difficult to fit into a team. A six-month coaching contract is a farcically short time for a dogmatic coach to implement his ideals of high-intensity pressing.
So instead, we should judge this not just as an interim coach arriving, but as a two-and-a-half year contract starting, and Rangnick is only being the manager through necessity before taking the job he really wants. A future consultancy role makes Rangnick the man with the experience to shape the club’s future. Then it’s on the club to bestow him with the power too. Rough translation: no more non-football experts deciding football policy.
And that creates a blueprint for United’s medium-term future. Rangnick implements the principles of pressing football, but more importantly imprints upon the squad an actual system rather than a series of component parts all trying to sing in harmony while wearing ear plugs.
He can have a hand in the hiring of his successor, and so might pick a coach who shares some of his own ideals (Erik ten Hag and Mauricio Pochettino both roughly fit that bill). The priority target is persuaded to take the job because he is not entering a blurry mess of half-ideas.
United may still get this wrong. But after years of wondering whether they were emotionally ready to step out of the Ferguson dynasty and into the future, they have at least attempted a move so bold it caught us all a little off guard.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3rarWFK
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