The Sunday Times November 28, 2021 9
you won’t be starting every game.” I
still can’t think of a better impact sub,
but he’s no longer the player he was —
you just can’t be at 36. He may look
magnificent when he takes his top
off, but you lose power and strength.
I’d also have said: “I’m looking for
you to teach these young guys about
turning up on time, looking after
yourself and training properly, to be
the example that takes this club back
to greatness.” He can still give you all
that, but he’s not going to be the go-to
man every Saturday, certainly not
against the stronger sides. Against
Liverpool and Manchester City, he
never got a kick because he’s playing
with ordinary footballers.
Bruno Fernandes is a good player
who will get you goals, but he can be
a luxury and they have too many of
them. They have the firepower, but
what about the hard yards going the
other way? I’ve still no idea what
their best XI is and that was also
Solskjaer’s problem, he was still
searching for a system and anidentity. After three years he didn’t
know his starting XI if everyone was
fit. They were so inconsistent he
couldn’t hang his hat on them.
United have been easy to roll over
this year and that’s a collective thing.
Against Liverpool they were a
shambles and five goals did not flatter
Klopp’s team. Sometimes players
tried to press high up, at other times
they didn’t. They appeared to have
zero game plan against arguably one
of the best teams in the world. The
Liverpool result will be remembered
for ever, but what won’t be is what
Manchester City did to them yet only
beat them 2-0. United didn’t take part
in that derby, they were outplayed,
out-thought and outfought. We could
all see how far off the pace they were.
And yet United’s board still wanted
to keep Solskjaer — if they could.
Finally they got turned over by
Watford, a team in the relegation
fight, and they had no option. Would
you trust them to get their next big
decision right?ON TV TODAY
Chelsea v Man Utd
Sky Sports Main Event,
kick-off 4.30pm
The appointment of
Ralf Rangnick could be
another bad call by
those in charge at
United. He can possibly
put in place a structure
that brings success
several years down the
line and top up his
pension pot, but is that
what they need right
now? Yet again I‘m
asking, who’s making
the football decisions
at that club?
IS RANGNICK
RIGHT FIT?
‘The England job
was between
Sam Allardyce
and me. They
decided on Sam.
We know how
that went...’
Ralf Rangnick on rejecting Chelsea
and brutal non-League stint in SussexReaction to Solskjaer
shows United are more
than a football club
Manchester United have dominated
the news this week. It’s a funny thing
with that football club. They inspire
such a visceral reaction from people.
Like a lot of his generation my late
father had a huge affection for the
Busby Babes. Their tragic demise
shook him and his fellow teenagers in
a way that is difficult for us to
comprehend. They represented
something important at a time when
Britain was finally emerging from
wartime rationing. Rock and roll had
drifted across the Atlantic, there was
full employment and opportunity
seemed everywhere. Right in the
middle were these young boys
playing football in a new and exciting
way. Then suddenly they were gone.
My older brother Chris is a United
fan. He loved the Tommy Docherty
team of the mid-1970s. Back then
United marauded around the
country, including a season in the
Second Division when it seemed the
name that the travelling fans called
themselves, the Red Army, perfectly
captured how every town that faced
them felt. It’s still a family story
brought out when we’re together of
me receiving a well deserved lamp
(that’s Welsh for thump) as I cheered
Alan Sunderland’s late winner for
Arsenal in 1979 just to annoy Chris.
My father told me I deserved that as I
didn’t even support Arsenal. I was
just doing what little brothers did
though, so felt very sorry for myself.
Manchester United are central to
our game in this country. I’d even say
in the world. Last week on my show
on talkSPORT the news broke of Ole
Gunnar Solskjaer’s sacking and we
had to concentrate on that only.
As a presenter you can see the
feeds of the public texting and
tweeting in. We have built up a
wonderful Sunday morning audience
the past 18 months, full of humour
and lovely nuggets that fit our
football culture show beautifully. We
put out a call to United fans to get in
touch and suddenly their messages
came in in a way that I’ve never seen
before. Thousands telling us their
opinion. I looked at my co-presenter,
Mark Webster, and we blew our
cheeks out, in the style of Sir Alex
Ferguson himself as he took his first
training sessions at the old Cliff
training ground back in 1986. Blimey,
this is a big club.
We had a good debate after the
show, me and Mark. He’s West Ham
United. I said to him that for meManchester United deserve a place at
the top table on the back of what Sir
Matt Busby built and achieved. Not
through a benevolent owner but on
how they played. He couldn’t have
disagreed more. “Ha. No one
deserves to be anywhere in football.”
We carried it on in the pub into the
afternoon. For the next few weeks,
newspapers and internet sites will be
full of speculation and the companies
will know that they’ll be getting more
hits than ever and the advertisers will
be over the moon.
I remember many years ago when
I worked as a researcher at ITV Sport
and it had the FA Cup rights. People
would react furiously because United
would be picked as the featured live
game. Surely it was more interesting
to show a struggling Premier League
team at a non-League ground? The
chance of an upset, the very essence
of the Cup.
I once asked one of the bosses why
we were only showing ManchesterEXTRA
TIME
with
Jonny
Owen
United at home, again. He beckoned
me over to his desk and showed me
the viewing figures. Nothing quite
prepared me for it. A bit like the
reaction on my show, they utterly
dwarfed everyone else. Liverpool
were the only ones who came
anywhere close. He looked at me
and said: “And that’s what the
advertisers pay for.”
I spent a lot of time in Manchester.
I have great friends there. They have
a way about them. A swagger. They
more than compete. Culturally and in
sport too. If United get it right with
their manager (interim or
permanent), they’ll be back, and for
me it seems that everything starts to
balance in the football world again.
Not that everyone agrees, but that’s
OK. That’s what being one of the
biggest and most important clubs in
the world brings. That’s what being
Manchester United is. More than a
football club.
Jonny Owen & Friends is on talkSPORT
on Sunday from 9amSOLSKJAER:
MY PART IN
HIS DOWNFALL
To read Duncan Castles on
the background to last week’s
Sunday Times exclusive on
his sacking, go to:
THESUNDAYTIMES.CO.UK/SPORT
‘Probably in
one of my
former lives
I was an
Englishman’
Rangnick has never tried to solve a
problem like United, though. Can he
adapt to Cristiano Ronaldo and vice
versa, while preaching
gegenpressing? Can Paul Pogba play
such a style? Does that mere six-
month contract as manager lend him
the authority to impose fundamental
change upon the squad?
Then there is the glaring problem
of just how good the opposition are.
The present Chelsea, Liverpool and
Manchester City teams might be the
best top three the Premier League
has ever witnessed. However, an
advantage is Rangnick’s feel for and
close knowledge of the English game.
“Probably in one of my former
lives I was an Englishman,” he joked
to me. His ambition as a child was not
to be a footballer or astronaut, but an
English teacher. From 1979-80 he
attended the University of Sussex,
during which he played for non-
League Southwick, watched Brighton
& Hove Albion at Goldstone Ground
and was always on the train to
London to watch games.
Arsenal were his favourite Englishside and he hopes the work permit
comes through in time for him to lead
United against Arsenal on Thursday.
A subplot is that one of the players he
coached at Leipzig (on loan) was
Emile Smith Rowe.
Could Rangnick, who recently
turned down the chance to coach
Russia, be United’s manager for
longer than six months? Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer, after all, arrived as an
interim and remained in place for
three years.
However, United are determined
to follow a clear plan this time — and
there is logic to the one of Rangnick
first bringing improvement on the
pitch and then development
throughout the wider club, while a
younger manager (and Erik ten Hag
instinctively feels a more natural
Rangnick successor than Mauricio
Pochettino) takes charge in the
dugout.
Solskjaer restored United’s soul
and values but a lack remained in
terms of football ideas. Rangnick,
England will discover, is absolutely,
messianically, full of them.Jonathan Northcroft’s
interview with
Rangnick in February