Manchester United have the chance to break player power under Ralf Rangnick and build a strategy

Manchester United have lurched from one style to another as they stumbled through their post-Ferguson managers, they have to break the cycle under Ralf Rangnick.

The interim manager offers a rare opportunity at Old Trafford. This is the first time that the club can properly move on from Alex Ferguson, a one-man infrastructure, and instead give someone with footballing expertise the chance to establish the first club strategy for a decade.

For all Ed Woodward’s supposed financial acumen, few would praise his interventions on the football side.

David Moyes, a manager with no meaningful European experience and no track record of top-level football, was moved aside in favour of Louis van Gaal, a two-time winner of the Champions League with Ajax, Barcelona and others on his CV.

When that didn’t work, Woodward found a big name who was easy to secure, Jose Mourinho, who had a reputation for succeeding in the Premier League, something Van Gaal struggled with due to his outmoded approach.

However even the Portuguese could not get the players to buy in, and given his approach to criticising them in the press, that is perhaps not a surprise. After his aggro and bullying failed to gee up the players for longer than a season, Mourinho started to metaphorically set fire to the curtains and it was inevitable he would be sacked.

Woodward looked towards Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. On the surface he seemed like an amiable Scandinavian, one who would not challenge the management when he felt short-changed, and a manager who was unwilling to admonish his players when their standards fell below what was acceptable.

Each time, Woodward had to rely on the simple approach of guessing what had gone wrong with one manager, and looking for something like the opposite to try next. When players decided that the current incumbent wasn’t working out for them, they knew that the manager would be shown the exit door, rarely was their a huge cull of deadwood.

In truth, Rangnick’s appointment is still along those lines. Solskjaer was a tactical amateur. The German, however, is regarded as one of the godfathers of modern attacking football, one for the tactics nerds to get excited about. And fair enough, the teams he has been involved in as a manager or further above have often played excellent football and developed young players along the way. That clearly fits into the regard that United’s fans have for themselves, so it’s worth a try.

It is what is new that is most important, though. The players change far slower than the manager does. Of course, that’s to be expected. It is easy to get rid of one manager than it is a few highly paid players, but at United there has been a dreadful torpor when it comes to getting rid of underperformers.

Luke Shaw, Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Phil Jones, Jesse Lingard, Nemanja Matic, Juan Mata, Fred and arguably many others should not still be fixtures of the United side. More ruthless, decisive sides would have shipped some or all of them out in the pursuit of players who are good enough to challenge at the top of the league. There is a chance that some of those named may be coached to come good under Rangnick, but that will not change the point. The majority of them simply should not be at the club.

That stagnation shows that players have been aware that they can easily outlast coaches they don’t like, even if they shoulder much of the culpability for failure. This persistent problem can now be challenged.

With the current plan, Rangnick will stay on until the end of the season as manager before moving upstairs to oversee strategy. One must assume that his direction will be more use than Woodward’s, given their different areas of expertise. And given Rangnick’s tactical nous, United should hope that whichever manager or managers follow him in the next few years will be someone to stick to roughly similar ideas.

That means that when managers change, it will not be inevitably met by one extreme being replaced by another.

Rangnick has noted the energy in their league performances since his arrival in England and praised their physical commitment. Before now, the squad were known for trailing their peers when it came to physical exertion. But Rangnick will stay and he will be replaced by a manager who also wants his team to perform like athletes as well as players. No longer will there be a readymade holiday or excuse for the deadwood - United have the chance to back Rangnick and break a cycle of internecine player power.