By the end of his seven months at Manchester United as interim manager, Ralf Rangnick had seen enough.
He arrived at Old Trafford with glowing references from Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel, describing him as the ‘godfather’ of German football, who possessed not only the tactical acumen to turn the side around on the pitch but the expertise to rebuild the club off it, too.
Rangnick failed the first part after replacing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and miserably so – with United finishing sixth and 35 points behind champions Manchester City.
Reshaping an outdated infrastructure was the bigger task, with Rangnick agreeing at the time of his appointment to take on a two-year consultancy role at the club once his managerial stint was over. Rangnick, who had effectively built RB Leipzig from the ground up, was clear what needed to be done at Old Trafford.
‘It’s not enough to do some minor amendments – cosmetic things. In medicine you would say that this is an operation of the …