Manchester United are experiencing one of the most difficult times in its history. Since Alex Ferguson stepped down as the club’s manager in 2013, the club has lost its identity. Since 2011, The Red Devils have spent over $1 billion on player transfers, but the team never had a great performance.
In December 2021,Manchester United confirmed German Ralf Rangnick as the new interim manager for the remainder of the season, and after that, he would remain at the club as sporting director for two more years.
Since his arrival at the club, the German manager has done a great deal of research and studied which players were right for Manchester United. The problem was that club executives did not follow his advice, and the players that Rangnick proposed are now succeeding in other teams.
Why Manchester United didn´t sing Alvarez, Diaz, and Vlahovic?
“The answer at the time was no there was no player on the market that could really help us – there were a few, Diaz who is now at Liverpool, Alvarez who will be at Manchester City in the summer, Vlahovic who at the time still was with Fiorentina those are just three of them that come across my mind now”, Rangnick said.
“I spoke to the board and said shouldn’t we at least speak and try and analyze if we could get a player either on loan or as a permanent deal but in the end the answer was no. I still believe that we should have at least tried, if we would’ve found and been able in 48 hours, 48 hours is short notice but it’s still 48 hours, it might have been worth to try and internally discuss but we didn’t and it was not done.”
On January 30, Luis Diaz (25) was announced as a new Liverpool player. The Colombian signed a 5-year contract with the Reds. Liverpool paid 45 million euros to Porto. So far, Diaz has played 26 games and scored 7 goals.
On January 31, Manchester City announced the signing of Julian Alvarez (22). The Citizens paid River Plate 21 million euros for his transfer and the Argentinean signed a contract for five and a half years. However, Alvarez is still playing for River Plate and this season he played 32 games and scored 26 goals.
On January 28, Juventus made the signing of Dušan Vlahović (22) official. La Vecchia Signora paid Fiorentina €70 million for the striker. Vlahović has become a key player. Since his arrival, he has played 18 games and scored 7 goals.