Ralf Rangnick worried Manchester United staff because he was right about January transfer mistake

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Another January and Manchester United find themselves in need of a white knight to come galloping in.

Bruno Fernandes galvanised the squad in 2020, Odion Ighalo - signed in the same month as Fernandes - provided short-term support and three years later Wout Weghorst scored as many goals as he did for Burnley. Two.

United's inertia in recent mid-season windows is also infamous. Three months after they ended the 2022 January window weaker when it closed than they had when it had opened, Ralf Rangnick laid bare the incompetence of the club's structure.

"The answer at the time was no, there is no player on the market who would really help us," Rangnick revealed, pinning the blame on the scouting department. Could Rangnick see one on the market?

"There were a few! [Luis] Diaz, who is now at Liverpool, [Julian] Alvarez, who will be at Manchester City in the summer, [Dusan] Vlahovic, who at the time was still with Fiorentina. So those are just three of them that come across my mind now."

United were bemused by partisan reports that Liverpool were about to beat them to the signing of Diaz from Porto. Diaz, a right-footed left winger, was not on United's radar as they had four of those already: Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Anthony Elanga and Anthony Martial (farmed out on loan to Sevilla).

Diaz has notched four goals in six games against United. Elanga, Martial and Sancho have gone and Rashford is going. It is not a flattering look.

Rangnick's comments caused such a stir two press officers returned to the press room after the Austrian's press conference and attempted to provide tenuous context. At the Amex Stadium the following day, the United press officer Karen Shotbolt approached me wondering if I could ask Rangnick about the non-signing matter at his post-match press conference so he could clarify his comments.

Then United played Brighton. They were hammered 4-0, the nadir of their worst season in decades. The question was rendered moot.

Rangnick remains a cause célèbre among United fans. The majority of the players never took to him and one senior player noted he was always "dropping bombs". Truth bombs.

For the press pack, Rangnick was riveting. That press conference the day before the Brighton debacle was only attended by six daily journalists as City were duking it out with Liverpool for the title race.

Naively, some desks deemed City to be the bigger story when Rangnick had diagnosed "open heart surgery" only a week earlier. That spawned the back page headline 'EMERGENCY WARD TEN', with incoming manager Erik ten Hag depicted as a surgeon.

Given the concern of the press officers post-press conference, we wondered why Ms Shotbolt, sat next to Rangnick, had allowed it to flow (not that we were complaining). It emerged she was to leave the club at the end of the season.

United finished sixth while Diaz helped Liverpool come within 45 minutes of the Premier League title. A potential target Rangnick did not mention was Dejan Kulusevski, a deadline day arrival at Tottenham, who secured the final Champions League qualifying place.

The current United are eight places worse off than the squad of surrenderers under Rangnick. They are more worried about dropping into the bottom four than moving into the top four.

United's malaise is so severe they have to do something this month. Fresh faces are needed to jolt the team and almost every squad member is expendable.

There is no talk of a war chest for Amorim as the impoverished United do not have a pot. Their immediate focus is to improve the existing players and the word from the club has been to continue to invest in the five who were recruited in the summer.

That idealistic rhetoric is already dated with Joshua Zirkzee's race run. Manuel Ugarte has become an authoritative regular since he was reunited with Amorim and Leny Yoro has potential but Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui were only signed through their history with Ten Hag.

Mazraoui has performed respectably but De Ligt, in decline since he left Ajax in 2019, has been quickly found out in football's most unforgiving league. Signing a player based on what he did five years ago and granting him a five-year contract was illogical.

The bigger problem is up the other end. United have not had a goalscorer since the start of last season, despite spending £108.5million on two purported strikers.

They could outright buy one this month if Rashford is sold. It depends on what deal can be engineered for him. Rashford's back injury five years ago forced United to move for Ighalo at the 11th hour.

United were in disarray that month, too. There had been four defeats in January prior to Fernandes's private jet touching down, militant supporters descended on Ed Woodward's house and Woodward sought Neil Ashton's apparent PR expertise.

With Fernandes, United were unbeaten for their last 14 league games of the season (though the last nine fixtures were played behind closed doors) and finished third.

Do not expect a repeat.

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