On November 29, Ralf Rangnick has been appointed as Manchester United interim boss and will take up a consultancy role at the club after the end of this season. It means that he will be playing a similar role he played at Hoffenheim, Schalke 04 and both RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg. However, the word consultancy in the case of United has not been specified properly.
The German was an integral part of the transfer negotiation business at all the clubs he previously worked for, in whichever capacity he was involved in. He is expected to take up a similar role this time with United, but there are some doubts as to where he will fit in among the existing members like Matt Judge and John Murtough. The executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward is expected to leave his role at the end of this season.
According to Globo, the Rangnick appointment could cost an immediate windfall of around 17 million pounds for the Red Devils. Andreas Pereira, the former Benfica midfielder who has spent over a decade at Old Trafford, is currently on loan at Flamengo might be sealing a permanent transfer at the end of this season.
He is valued at around 17 million pounds by his parent club, but Flamengo are keen on bringing the price down after the appointment of the new interim boss. This will be one of Rangnick’s primary jobs in hand, to ensure the club is receiving enough money will selling players, which may not be easy because of the complex structure at the club.
A lot of players in the past have been contracted at the club for huge wages, which clubs outside of the top five leagues might not think of affording. Adding to it, a lot of players have had uneven game time at United, especially the lot that is bound to be sold at the end of this season.
Pereira made just 75 league appearances for the club, which isn’t huge considering the amount of time he spent here. He had four different loan spells during his time with the club, and as it stands, he has scored five goals in 13 appearances for Flamengo, who are currently trying their power to bring the price down, which will be a tough deal to negotiate for the newly appointed boss.
Pereira’s contract expires in June 2023, which means this is his penultimate season at the club. If he enters the final year of his deal, the chances of selling him for a fee diminish significantly, which means 2022 January or 2022 summer are the windows the club must be looking at to sell this player.
Manchester United have had a horrible start to the ongoing season, having already lost five games in the league, including a couple of embarrassing defeats to arch-rivals Liverpool (5-0) and Manchester City (2-0).
The 4-1 defeat to Watford (November 20) at the Vicarage Road turned out to be the final nail in the coffin for the manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and since then, the club has looked at multiple candidates to replace the Norwegian at the helm.
PSG boss Mauricio Pochettino seemed pretty close to making a mid-season move to Manchester United, but since the Ligue 1 club have the options of finding a suitable replacement immediately, that door was shut.
Ernesto Valverde, Lucien Favre, Rudi Garcia were touted to become the interim manager until the end of the season before paving the way for Pochettino or Erik Ten Hag to take over.
Rangnick was eventually chosen to take the club forward, and it looks like he will be here for a long time, potentially past the two-year consultancy contract.
