TalkSport pundit Jamie O’Hara has hit out at Manchester United and Ralf Rangnick after the 63-year-old’s departure from the club was confirmed.
Rangnick replaced Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as interim Red Devils boss towards the end of last year, with him taking on the job until the end of the season before moving into a two-year consultancy role. However, after a poor end to the campaign and following the arrival of his successor Erik ten Hag, he has now left the club altogether to focus on his role as the new Austria manager.
Speaking on TalkSport, O’Hara was not shy in sharing his thoughts on the development. He said: “The Ralf Rangnick situation, for me, is just an absolute joke. Who appointed him in the first place, I mean, who makes that decision to bring him in?
“And then the fact that he comes over here and he’s like this ‘professor of the game’. And that’s what winds me up the most, that we have to deal with people who come over and think they know better than the people over here. We’ve got the best league in the world, we’ve got the best managers in the world and we’ve got the best coaches in the world.
“And then Ralf comes over and starts trying to tell us about the philosophy of how a team should be run and how it should be played. That’s what annoyed me the most. And people saw through him, instantly – the players did, the fans did, pundits and journalists saw right through him, saw that he was a joke, and it just went from bad to worse. It was an absolute disaster.”
TIF Thoughts on Rangnick…
There is no doubt that Rangnick’s reign as manager did not go well at Old Trafford. United won a disappointing 11 of the 29 games he had in charge in all competitions, and he was clearly unable to sort out the problems in the dressing room.
Did you want Rangnick to stay?
Yes
No
However, O’Hara clearly has no intention of looking at the bigger picture, so we will have to do it for him. Since 2011, Rangnick has managed just two full seasons, and has never been involved in the Premier League or English football before.
His best work has been done off the pitch more recently. He oversaw the early years of the Red Bull project in football, and garnered a reputation for being able to structure an entire football club.
That was what he was brought in for. It was perhaps a mistake to employ him as a manager first, but O’Hara clearly has no clue about his track record as he completely dismissed him.
Ironically, the best managers and coaches in England are from abroad, and one of the very best of the lot, Jurgen Klopp, has previously named Rangnick as a key influence on his career. United need change from top to bottom, and Rangnick, in the right role, could have implemented that. Unfortunately, we will now never know what he could have done had he been given the reins upstairs.