Manchester United continues its slump, set to finish the fifth season in a row titleless. Meanwhile, manager Ralf Rangnick has suggested four recommendations that could fix the club.
Things keep getting poorer for the record 20-time English Premier League (EPL) former champion, Manchester United. It is set to finish the ongoing season titleless, its fifth such season in a row. Its top-four finish in the EPL looks dicey following its 1-1 draw at Old Trafford to ninth-placed Leicester City this weekend, as Ralf Rangnick's men have dropped to the seventh spot.
As of now, it looks like United's caretaker head coach Rangnick will not continue the role full time and will be taking on the consultancy role next summer at the club. His prime objective would be to fix order with the board and assist in decision-making and transfer dealings. In the meantime, he has suggested four recommendations to improve the Red Devils' slump: Long-term recruitment improvement, building a good squad around the incoming manager, prioritising physical and aggressive players, and scouting a player based on his personality.
"Manchester City and Liverpool have been built together and recruited over a period of five or six years, all of them under the premise of how the coaches want to play. I told the [United] board this is what has to happen. Whenever the new head coach is clear, it has to be: How does he want to play, and what kind of players do we need for that? Then, we come back to DNA, speed, physicality, and tempo. What do we need? This team does not lack technical players. It can do with more physicality," Rangnick said after the Leicester draw.
"I don't think we lack character, but what was obvious in some parts of the game is we second best-regarded physicality. It was about one on one duels. We spoke about that counter-attacking moment we had ourselves where they tackled us twice within two seconds, which was true in quite a few other moments. Whenever there was body contact, too often, we were second best. We have to get better at the rest of this season, but even more so for next season," added Rangnick.