Man Utd are looking to appoint a new permanent manager at the end of the season and could end the January window without any new signings.
What started as a season of huge promise for Manchester United has quickly turned into one of crisis, with interim manager Ralf Rangnick facing huge scrutiny little more than a month into taking his role.
United were supposed to seriously challenge for the Premier League this season after a seismic summer of investment, but instead they find themselves seventh at the midway stage of the campaign after another campaign of underachievement.
The Manchester Evening News revealed this week that United players are becoming ‘sick to death’ of the dwindling standards at the club, and resentment is festering among some of their under-used players.
Three years after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer embarked on his infamous ‘cultural reset’ of the club, United find themselves back at square one, with a disjointed dressing room, bloated squad and questions about the managerial set-up currently in place.
Whenever any side is underachieving, the temptation is to always question the manager, usually in the form of a social media witch hunt, while supporters often voice their demands for new signings in an effort to stop the rot.
United find themselves in a peculiar problem this January given the current state of play, though. Despite the clear need for a new midfield signing, the magic wand solution cannot be to throw more money at the current mess they find themselves in. They have the second-most expensive squad ever assembled in football history and, regardless of the current midfield fragility, have more than enough individual talent to be involved in the title race.
The second issue is that Rangnick was only ever billed as a stop-gap between now and the end of the season. The German was hired because no other candidate was deemed suitable. Replacing him so early in his role would make no sense, unless for a permanent manager who ticks all of their boxes.
With the club still caught in an awkward flux between a past regime and a new beginning, the possibility of even signing any new players this month is also thrown into question.
The search is ongoing for a leading candidate to take the reigns at the end of the season, but until one can be identified, it makes little sense for the club to part with any substantial fee on a player who might not have the new manager’s seal of approval.
Rangnick’s appointment initially saw the likes of Diogo Dalot, Alex Telles, Fred and Jadon Sancho given new importance in the first-team squad. If they had chosen to appoint Antonio Conte, then there might have been other fringe players given new roles as part of a formation change or tactical tweak.
It might sound obvious, but every manager has their own way of doing things, and without a clear plan going forward, it is currently rather hard for United to make any ruthless decisions regarding first-team personnel.
That said, there is still a clear need to trim the fat from a bloated squad this month regardless of who the next manager will be, though finding any individual to strengthen it isn’t such an obvious task.
United’s lack of strategy isn’t only hampering them on the pitch, but it is giving them issues off it too.
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