Ten Hag ignores Rangnick warning as Man Utd rebuild suffers fresh humiliation
Ralf Rangnick's stark warning that Erik ten Hag needed to perform "open heart surgery" on Manchester United's squad continues to ring true following their 1-0 defeat at Newcastle.
United offered little threat all game on Saturday night and were lucky Anthony Gordon's second-half strike was the only goal they conceded. Ten Hag and Anthony Martial were seen having a go at each other during the game, while Marcus Rashford was visibly frustrated when he was taken off.
And with eight members of United's starting line-up against Newcastle also part of the squad when Rangnick was in charge two seasons ago, it seems Ten Hag has failed to heed his advice. "In medicine, you would say that this is an operation of the open heart," Rangnick said during his final weeks in charge.
"There are more things to be changed than some little things here and some minor things there, but this is the good thing. The good thing is that it's crystal clear, it's not that difficult, you don't even need glasses to see and analyse where the problems are.
"Now it's only about 'how do we solve them?'. For me it's not enough to do some minor amendments, some little issues here and there and little cosmetic things. Everyone has realised that this has to happen and I still believe it doesn't take two or three years to change those things.
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"This can happen within one year. Other clubs not too far away from here have shown that it doesn't take two, three or four years, it's possible within one, two or maybe three transfer windows." But Ten Hag, despite overseeing a huge spending spree, has continued to stick with familiar faces in his United squad.
The defeat means United have now failed to beat a top eight team away from home in over two years and when asked about that fact in his post-match press conference, Ten Hag admitted: "I was waiting for that question.
Erik ten Hag is under pressure (Getty Images)"So we are always [having] issues. I know it's your job to see that. We have the away form or we have the home form. We have this issue and we have to overcome this issue. It's the truth.
"Today, I have to say credit to Newcastle. After the start, where we could have scored with Alejandro Garnacho, they were better than us, more proactive. We had to go behind, to go back, and we had to defend.
"We did that but, yeah, we allowed them one goal. In the end, we fought back, had two good opportunities, but we couldn’t take a point from here."
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