Ed Woodward always gets his man. Or at least, Ed Woodward always gets A Man, Give the Manchester United chief executive his due. People definitely keep moving forward.
The decision to replace Ole Gunnar Solskjöri probably has some kind of way with Ralph Rangnick: The leap from a managerial style based on vibes, DNA and warm feelings to Europe’s most forgiving 63-year-old process instructor.
It might be surprising why there was such an urge to tease Solskjor’s reign to its final stage of entropy, if a week later, it turns out that what we really need here is tactical boot camp with the King of Pain. . Or the mouth-watering prospect of mature Cristiano Ronaldo being instructed in the art of violent German gegenpressing by a coach who looks as though he writes books about furniture design and drives a car powered by sunflower oil. .
There is news that Rangnik has agreed terms to become interim manager for an as yet undisclosed permanent manager, and then to move to a technical, directing role somewhere in between the current occupants of those roles. fully approved or not. Joint.
But it is an undeniably exciting move, and one that holds an extra edge as United, yet without an interim man, travel to play. Chelsea Sunday afternoon. Rangnik can be a tactical non sequitur. It can take a bit of slack to work him out if he has to establish his famous hard-running rhythm. But if a visit to Stamford Bridge offers any insight it’s how quickly the inner workings of a team can be punctuated by culture and habits.
Thomas Tuchel’s extraordinary gains of the past 10 months have reset the dial on this one. There is race success for the man in the beanie hat and skinny-fitted tracksuit. This irreplaceable thing: it is now the norm, not to mention fresh fuel for the fixation of English football, with the great transformative talent, watcher and manager as the rain maker.
A quarter century ago, Arsene Wenger invented broccoli, yoga and not eating chocolate. Jose Mourinho gave us the power of individuality. In the last five years Pep Guardiola and now Tuchel have provided a revolution by the system, theory and academics, even for the leg managers of the league, first of all, it is necessary to talk about their “philosophy”. Is. All this in a football culture where academic methods were mocked for so long as the pigeon-chest effect, chalkboards took the joke from the room. Instead, welcome to the new intellect.
This is certainly both an exaggeration (what people have always liked to think) and a fiction. Success rests on many other factors, not least on money and talent. Ability in executive levels also helps. Perhaps Woodward can stroll into Marina Granovskia’s office on Sunday and compare notes on how Chelsea have managed to cut a path through nine first-team managers over the past decade, all while winning a trophy. Betting United as a force and getting ahead. ,
Certainly Chelsea’s board would have raised an eyebrow at the indulgence shown to Solskjaer. This time last year, Frank Lampard’s own legend-manager-leader spell began to fail. One run of five losses in nine was just that. No generational humiliation, no weird public pundit theatre, just a tiny flash of blade.
There is no camaraderie or support about Tuchel’s success in these months. Rarely has a football manager made such a convincing case for sacking other football managers. But there’s a weirdness in hiring Rangnik. Just as Tuchel’s career was fueled by the ideas and intensity of the Rangnick “school”, United’s now eagerness to bring on Rangnick – sending for the mid-season Super Brains – is clearly influenced by Tuchel’s success.
It makes sense on other levels. There will always be room for big personality, motivator, manager as handsome celebrity Duke. But with Tuchel and Rangnik, and Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp for that matter, the most notable quality is their restless wit, obsession with detail, with football as a game of shapes and numbers and ideas.
That’s how you win in this game now. The fitness and technical quality of elite players match up so well that it has become a game of details, a battle as much of a brain as physical. With that in mind Solskjor’s departure has spared us what would be a very stark contrast.
On the one hand a coach who operates within a matrix of received ideas, which sends teams either attacking or defending, who speaks of wearing shirts and being on the front foot; And Tuchel’s acumen on the other hand, his tendency to defy original ideas, even in pre- and post-match TV shows, by twisting the thing in his hand, looking at the edges of it.
This contrast is present in many details ahead of Sunday’s game. Consider for a moment, full-back, a position that is now a reliable indicator of how close a team finds itself to the state of the art.
Full-backs these days are messengers from the future, fluid, roaming, unwanted things. Full-back width, depth, provide other gear. Or alternatively, they don’t. Luke Shaw did a great job last season. Aaron Wan-Bissaka works very hard. But compare the straight lines of a United full-back to the emerging talent of Reece James, who is probably the best right-back in the world at the moment.
The United full-back has not scored a single goal so far this season. Chelsea have nine. really before Juventus Wednesday Night Last time one of Chelsea’s central strikers scored win against Southampton in early October. 25 in the middle, 13 runs scored mainly by defensive players
Above all, the Chelsea team is a cohesive, multi-core unit where each player is sure of his role. Chelsea’s third goal against Juventus was a perfect short, not only for its execution – a short film could have been made about the quick legs of James’ drag back, Ruben Loftus-Cheek – but it was actually the performance of three academy players. There was work.
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Rangnik is also a systems man. He designed the system, or at least hard-running, hard-pressing football, a founding version of the sport of sprints. It will be interesting to see how he adds Ronaldo to his interim squad. Or indeed, how Rangnik adapts himself, for the first time, to be a giant, hungry monster of a club, a global brand machine, in charge of one hell of a ton of voices and effects.
The work will be to tighten up the details, with parts of this combined team talking to each other, with three matches a week if that’s possible. He has not only a defense, but an influence in Sunday’s rivalry; And an act of mid-season alchemy that Rangnik would inform and provide a remedy for what Rangnik could gain from here.