Man United recruit “scared” the Glazers “to death” two years ago, insists Gary Neville

Ex-Manchester United legend Gary Neville has claimed that Ralf Rangnick was sacked by the Glazers because he “scared them to death.”

Following the departure of Ole Gunnar Solskjær in November 2021, German manager Ralf Rangnick was appointed as interim manager of Manchester United for the remainder of the 2021-2022 season.

The 65-year-old – who agreed to remain at the club as sporting director when a new manager replaced him – was brutal in his assessment of Manchester United and the dire situation he found it in during his time at the club.

In a damning press conference with Rangnick towards the end of his tenure, the interim manager spoke his mind.

He said: “It’s not enough to do some minor amendments – cosmetic things. In medicine, you would say that this is an operation of the open heart.”

Rangnick was replaced by current Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag later that month, and the German did not stay on as sporting director.

Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, Neville spoke about Rangnick’s time at Manchester United and how it relates to the current situation at the club.

He said: “They brought him as a sporting director, but he was just managing the team for a few months, and he was gonna get a sporting director’s job at the end of the season.

“He said that it needed open-heart surgery, and he wanted to get rid of like 10 or 12 of them out of the club, didn’t he, and just rip all of it.”

Neville suggested that the brutal honesty that Rangnick brought to the club, and how publically he would speak about the situation at Manchester United, is what led to his dismissal by the controversial Glazer family.

Neville said: “They got rid of him because that scared them to death. You know what I mean? If you look at what he said, it was probably to be fair the most [of it]…”

With Sir Jim Ratcliffe recently securing a 25 per cent stake in Manchester United, it is possible that now is the time for the new stakeholder to listen to Ralf Rangnick nearly two years after his departure.