Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Get the balance right... and Rangnick can be new ‘Houllier’
A THOUGHT has been fluttering around my head since Ralf Rangnick joined Manchester United, without ever settling.
Then, when I watched his first press conference closely, it came to me.
He is much like Gerard Houllier when he came to Liverpool in the late 1990s.
Same mannerisms, same studious school master air about him.
Ralf even looks a little like him. And I don’t think that’s where the similarities end, because when it came to me, I realised that Manchester United are VERY much like our Liverpool team when Houllier arrived.
They have got some brilliant players, and on their day they can beat anyone.
They have been around the top four fairly consistently, but without ever truly challenging. They have a sound defensive record, but can be exposed at the back.
Sound familiar? Yep, that just about describes our Liverpool team in the 90s.
I genuinely believe we were better than this United team are now, but we had similar weaknesses.
I’ve looked back at our record when we were always up there, just behind United and Arsenal, and we always finished in the top four, but without ever coming close to a real challenge.
I was surprised, too, to see we were generally in the top three when it came to our defensive record, often with less goals conceded than United, even when they were winning the damn thing.
And we had an attack that could destroy any team. So why didn’t we win anything? I’d say it came down to balance... or a lack of it. We couldn’t quite find a consistency between attack and defence.
I think United have the same problem, and I think they reacted just as Liverpool did back in the 90s when they brought in Houllier.
I’m not having a go at Roy Evans, because he is my favourite manager.
Roy did great things for my career, and I probably had my best years under him. But there was always this stigma – unfairly – that he was somehow ‘too nice’.
I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean, but you get the impression the United board felt the same about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Like my Liverpool team, there isn’t the consistency, or direction, or balance. They don’t get it right in all areas at the same time.
Liverpool responded by bringing in Houllier.
He brought in a school master approach, supposedly tougher and more disciplined, with rules, fines and rollickings, which have always been part of football – but not necessarily effective now, in the 21st century.
I fell out with him, but not because of that – purely because I wanted to play more than I did.
I could never get my head around being dropped.
You get the impression Rangnick is like that, too, and, yes, it could work. But I do believe that to be successful in management these days you have to be more collaborative, understand your players better.
Maybe that’s why Jose Mourinho didn’t work, maybe that is why they went down the route of Solskjaer. Now it seems they thought he was too soft. I guess the hope is that Rangnick is somewhere in between.
There seems to be an emphasis on younger players, but I think what will help Rangnick is to deliver a clear identity and a clear plan the players can buy into.
I look at managers who have lost their job recently, and questions are often asked about their identity. My first question is always: ‘did their players believe the manager had everything covered?’.
That’s the key to getting your players behind you and your philosophy. They want certainty, they want to know the preparation is spot on.
We were brought up on the old Liverpool philosophy of ‘don’t worry about your opponents, let them worry about you’, but that is history. You HAVE to know the opposition, prepare for everything they might bring.
Rangnick looks to be that manager, but to get the job permanently he has to solve a problem even Houllier didn’t, despite the trophies he won at Liverpool – find consistent balance in the team.
You have to know the opposition, prepare for everything. Ralf looks to be that manager