Former Manchester United interim manager Ralf Rangnick has revealed that he had identified all of the club's main problems within just two weeks of his arrival at Old Trafford.
The German was installed as United's interim manager on a deal until the end of the season last November, following the Reds' decision to sack Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Rangnick was considered a left-field choice to succeed the Norwegian, having spent just two seasons out of the past decade in the dugout.
Rangnick, now in charge of the Austrian national team, was more familiar with an upstairs, advisory-type role, overseeing recruitment and sporting development, at clubs such as RB Leipzig and Lokomotiv Moscow. However, he produced a good sales pitch to United, and was selected as the man to try and arrest the club's slump.
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However, the former RB Leipzig chief failed to improve on-field matters at United, guiding them to a sixth-placed finish in the Premier League at the end of last season.
Nevertheless, Rangnick did a good job in highlighting United's biggest troubles and being refreshingly honest about their decline during his press conferences. The 64-year-old has now revealed that he was aware of the Reds' troubles within just two weeks of picking up the baton from Solskjaer.
"As a coach or sports director, it's about being able to develop things and minimising the chance factor as much as possible," Rangnick told Der Standard. "That you develop a team in a direction where you use game control and a certain type of football to create significantly more chances than you allow the opponent to have.
"It would not have taken Manchester United six months to do that. After just two weeks it was clear to me where the problems were and what would have to be done to fix them - but the question is whether you have the option of changing these things."
Although Rangnick was always going to vacate the dugout at the end of last season, he was supposed to stay at Old Trafford in an advisory role, supporting the new manager in his mission to rebuild the club this summer. However, United completely cut ties with Rangnick at the end of May.
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