After completing their worst league season for more than 50 years, Manchester United face a huge summer.
After being parachuted into the club in November, Ruben Amorim was only able to lead the club to a 15th-place finish, their worst top-flight finish since the 1973/74 campaign, and were unable to salvage their season in the Europa League, when they lost the final to Tottenham.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe completed his minority investment in the club 18 months ago and took over the running of the club’s football operations, quickly showing his ruthless side in reorganising the Old Trafford hierarchy, but the club very much remain a work in progress.
Former Manchester United boss takes aim at club's leaders
Notably, the club’s last Premier League title win came in 2012/13 during Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season at the helm, with the club cycling through a host of managers in the 12 years since he left.
Ralf Rangnick spent half a season as Manchester United's interim manager between December 2021 and May 2022, shortly after FourFourTwo had ranked him at no.70 in a list of the 100 most influential people in the game. The respected coach was due to become a consultant at the end of his spell, with the club instead opting to cut ties and Rangnick has now discussed the Red Devils’ current malaise.
"I think we have to go back to 2013, when Sir Alex left the club," Rangnick, who is now the manager of the Austrian national side, told Spanish outlet Sport. "And at the time he was still there, he was the mastermind behind it all. He probably also brought a lot of important people to the club.
"And the moment he left, some of those people probably left the club as well. And, since then, I think they have a leadership problem. Who's really making the decisions and why are they making them?
“Are they really the best people for the job? I can only tell you that the six months I was there, it was difficult to say, even for me as head coach.
"Who were the decision makers? Who? Who could I talk to? If we wanted to sign new players, it was difficult. There were people, but in the end, it was difficult."
During his time Old Trafford, Rangnick was never slow to address the club’s failings, once claiming that his squad needed ‘open heart surgery’, and it would appear that he still believes the club is failing from a leadership point of view.
The latest shake-up under Ratcliffe came earlier this month, when Jason Wilcox was appointed as sporting director, replacing Dan Ashworth, who unexpectedly left the club in November, while Sir Dave Brailsford has also stepped back from his role.
In FourFourTwo’s view, Rangnick is entirely correct with his diagnosis, as the club has been floundering for some time now from a leadership perspective and the team are now feeling these effects on the pitch.
