Will Rangnick play any role in United future?
Boss left out of Ten Hag talks
RALF RANGNICK is keen to meet Erik ten Hag and deliver a full debrief of the problems he has encountered at Manchester United in a bid to help his successor navigate the politics at the club — but has received no indication that such a meeting will happen.
United are focusing on finishing the season a week today and any meeting would have to wait until after their final match at Crystal Palace.
But Rangnick was not part of the summit meeting in Amsterdam last week, which included director of football John Murtough, Steve McClaren, who is likely to join Ten Hag at United, and Ten Hag’s Ajax assistant, Mitchell van der Gaag, who will also be an assistant at Old Trafford.
Rangnick has been in contact with Ten Hag via an intermediary, Lars Kornetka, who will be Rangnick’s No2 in the Austria manager’s job, which he takes up next month.
Kornetka worked with Ten Hag at Bayern Munich in 2013-14, when the Dutchman was in charge of Bayern’s B team and Kornetka was a video analyst and the pair remain close. As such, there is the chance that Ten Hag will get the full lowdown on what has been a disastrous season at United, with dressing room politics understood to have contributed to their worst Premier League campaign.
But the fact that no formal contact has taken place yet calls into question just how seriously the club are taking Rangnick’s consultancy role, which runs until 2024 and which was announced to great fanfare alongside his appointment as interim manager last November.
Rangnick is understood to be keen to play a full role as a consultant and accepted the Austria job partly as it doesn’t have the same demands as day-to-day club management and would allow him to be a meaningful presence at United. But he wasn’t involved in the appointment of Ten Hag and has no previous relationship with him.
Unless United’s hierarchy are saving talks to the end of the season, at present it appears that his role will be minimal. Despite Rangnick’s record of signing leading young players for Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim and his acknowledged expertise in the area, he is not as yet part of those discussion with Ten Hag.
Ten Hag is pushing for transfer targets to be finalised over the next two weeks and decisions taken on which players are to be sold and which will stay so that the club can approach the summer transfer market well prepared.
It is understood that Frenkie de Jong wasn’t discussed extensively at Thursday’s summit meeting. De Jong worked with Ten Hag at Ajax but Barcelona want at least £85million (€100m) for the defensive midfielder and United wouldn’t approve paying that much.