Ralf Rangnick makes new Man United claim after recalling ‘open heart surgery’ criticism

Former Manchester United interim manager Ralf Rangnick has doubled down on his assessment that United needed ‘open-heart surgery’ when he was at the club.

Rangnick, who took charge of United following the dismissal of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, served as the Red Devils’ interim manager for over five months.

Despite arriving under the expectation that he would remain at the club in a different role after the 2021/22 season came to a close, this did not come to fruition. Instead, Rangnick left the club shortly after the appointment of current Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag.

Famously, before his departure from the club, Rangnick said the following when asked about what United would need to do to become title contenders again:

“You don’t even need glasses to see and analyse where the problems are. Now it’s about how do we solve them?

“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.”

When discussing Rangnick’s comments with Dutch outlet AD Sportwereld back in July of this year, Ten Hag said, “Rangnick was absolutely right” in his assessment of United’s situation.

Rangnick, who is the current boss of Austria’s international team, was asked again over the international break about the comments he made shortly before his United departure.

“I probably made that statement when the season was almost over about two years ago,” Rangnick told TV2. “It is probably only two or three weeks since Erik ten Hag was asked the same thing.

“Then he said that I was right in my analysis. I don’t know how many players they have signed since, but it looks like I was right.”

Ten Hag, the man who succeeded Rangnick at United, has since seen his position come under scrutiny. Rangnick stated he is “not close enough to United to assess the status there.”

Ralf Rangnick’s time at Manchester United was ultimately underwhelming in several aspects, namely that he did not stay beyond his interim role as was expected and agreed upon initially.

Additionally, his win percentage of 37.93% from the 29 games he took charge of is the lowest of any Manchester United manager for nearly 50 years.

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