Former Manchester United manager Ralf Rangnick has revealed the board blocked January moves for a number of elite players including Erling Haaland, who subsequently joined their rivals Manchester City.
Rangnick was appointed as interim manager midway through last season after the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with a plan for the respected football mind to become a consultant to the club for two years after his temporary managerial role concluded.
But he was not backed in the January transfer window by the club’s owners, who preferred to save their cash for their new permanent manager, Erik ten Hag, to spend in the off-season.
Now, Rangnick has revealed that the owners refused to sanction interest in a number of superstar forwards, despite the club struggling. The list of players Rangnick was interested in signing includes Erling Haaland, who subsequently moved to Manchester City in the off-season, and Luis Diaz, who joined Liverpool in January.
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Haaland has scored 22 goals in just 16 appearances in all competitions so far, while Diaz has 10 goals and eight assists in 38 Liverpool appearances.
Rangnick also revealed he was interested in RB Leipzig’s Christopher Nkunku, Dusan Vlahovic (who joined Juventus) and Atletico Madrid’s Alvaro Morata (on loan at Juventus).
The club was in dire need of attacking reinforcements in January after Anthony Martial was loaned to Sevilla and Mason Greenwood was arrested and later charged with attempted rape, assault, and other domestic violence offences, while other strikers were injured.
But Rangnick wasn’t allowed to add to his squad.
“There was no such [transfer] dossier, and it was never wanted by the club,” Rangnick told German outlet BILD. “But even without such a script, it was clear to everyone that there was a need in many areas.
“That’s why we were already discussing players like Josko Gvardiol (RB Leipzig centre-back) and Christopher Nkunku from RB Leipzig. Those were names that were realistic.
“We also talked about Alvaro Morata, Luis Diaz, Dusan Vlahovic and, as I said, Erling Haaland when they were still on the market. But the club decided at that time to rebuild the team under the new coach.”
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Rangnick previously expressed his frustration at the club’s refusal to sanction a move.
“We had four days off at the time and on the Sunday I was informed about the issues with Mason Greenwood and obviously Anthony Martial had already left and then I was aware that within four days we had some strikers missing and it might make sense, we were still in three competitions – Champions League, FA Cup and fourth in the league but that’s the past and it doesn’t help us anymore,” he said in May.
“I spoke to the board and said shouldn’t we at least speak and try and analyse if we could get a player either on loan or as a permanent deal but in the end the answer was no.
“I still believe that we should have at least tried, if we would’ve found and been able in 48 hours, 48 hours is short notice but it’s still 48 hours, it might have been worth to try and internally discuss but we didn’t and it was not done.”
Having been unable to reinforce his squad in January, Rangnick’s United finished the season in 6th place with 58 points, their worst Premier League result.
He subsequently bailed out of the planned consultancy deal and took up a head coaching role at the Austrian national team.
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