Ralf Rangnick has warned Manchester United they could spend years in the wilderness – unless they learn from Liverpool and sort out their muddled recruitment strategy. The interim Old Trafford boss has set the club a challenge of creating a team capable of challenging for titles in just “two or three” transfer windows.
But ahead of their must-win clash against Liverpool at Anfield, he claimed the club are going nowhere unless they get a consistent policy over buying players. United have veered wildly between big-name signings towards the end of their careers and young talent at the start of their journeys.
Without a joined-up strategy they have seen the club slip miles behind the likes of Manchester City and tonight’s opponents Liverpool. “We spoke about Liverpool and how long it took them. It will take two or three windows if you know what you are looking for,” said Rangnick.
“If you don’t know what you are looking for it is a needle in a haystack. If you know what kind of football you want to play and what kind of profiles for each individual position, then it is about finding them and convincing them to come.
“For Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool it took two transfer windows. But even in the other transfer windows that came later on there has been a lot of very, very good transfers and signings. This is what it is all about. It is not complicated. It is not rocket science. But in order to have the best possible wind, you need to know what your destination haven is. If you don’t know that, it is always difficult.”
United’s recruitment has lacked a clear vision with the captures of Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphael Varane and Edinson Cavani seemingly at odds with a stated policy of building a younger squad. Rangnick is without two of that trio with Varane and Cavani out injured and will also be missing Luke Shaw, Fred and Scott McTominay for the trip to Anfield.
Bruno Fernandes is fit and ready to play despite crashing his car on the way into training on Monday. Rangnick insisted there must be no repeat of the humiliating 5-0 drubbing at Old Trafford in the reverse fixture back in October.
And while he admitted the task is huge against the Premier League’s most in-form side he insisted his players were ready to fight fire with fire. “We need to be aggressive, although there might be a lot of defensive work, we still need to be pro-active,” he said.
“Just sitting back and keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t concede any goals is not enough against a team like Liverpool. We will travel there and our clear goal is to win the game. We have to play at our very very best with and without the ball but I believe we can do that.
“After the results at the weekend we are still in the race for fourth but to stay in it we have to win almost every game. We might be the underdogs for most people but if we raise our level we have a chance.”