Ralf Rangnick reveals the three forwards he wanted Man United to sign in January
Ralf Rangnick has revealed he wanted Manchester United to sign three forwards in the January transfer window including Liverpool’s Luis Diaz but the board rejected his request.
The Red Devils’ interim manager has been very vocal about the club’s needs to refresh their squad, first warning they would require 10 new signings and recently adding that “two more quality strikers” is an obvious requirement.
In recent weeks Man Utd have only had Cristiano Ronaldo to call upon as their first-team striker, with back up option Edinson Cavani fighting with injury issues. When the Portuguese striker has also been absent, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Elanga and Bruno Fernandes have filled in; only the former is a recognised striker, but the Englishman is seen as more of a winger now.
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But that wasn’t for the want of trying, or a lack of ambition from Rangnick in the January transfer window.
According to the German, he had three targets in the January transfer window — which also saw Anthony Martial leave for Sevilla on loan — but had the late request turned down by the Man Utd board.
“The answer at the time was no there was no player on the market that could really help us,” he told reporters.
“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 still was with Fiorentina those are just three of them that come across my mind now.
“I spoke to the board and said shouldn’t we at least speak and try and analyse if we could get a player either on loan or as a permanent deal but in the end the answer was no.
“I still believe that we should have at least tried, if we would’ve found and been able in 48 hours, 48 hours is short notice but it’s still 48 hours, it might have been worth to try and internally discuss but we didn’t and it was not done.”
While Ronaldo has been saving Man Utd in recent weeks, netting nine goals in his past six matches including hat-tricks against Norwich City and Tottenham Hotspur, the Red Devils’ need for a second goalscorer has been evident. In that same six match run, the rest of Man Utd’s squad have managed two goals – coming from Bruno Fernandes and Raphael Varane last time out. Since the close of the January transfer window, 10 of Man Utd’s 21 Premier League goals have been scored by Ronaldo, and the Red Devils have fallen out of the race to finish in the Premier League’s top four.
And Man Utd have had to watch on as Diaz, in particular, has thrived at Liverpool. The Colombian winger has three goals in 10 Premier League appearances so far but his performances do stretch further than just goals, playing on the wing for a Liverpool team still on course for the Quadruple with just a few weeks left of the season.
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