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Manchester United confirmed the departure of interim manager Ralf Rangnick as their consultant due to the demands of his new role as Austria manager. The Red Devils released a statement about this news which mentioned that both parties have parted ways on mutual terms.
Rangnick confirmed the news about his departure in a press conference with Austria on Sunday. Manchester United's statement stated, “We would like to thank Ralf Rangnick for his efforts as interim manager over the past six months.”
“By mutual agreement, Ralf will now focus solely on his new role as manager of the Austria national team and will not, therefore, be taking up a consultancy role at Old Trafford. We would like to wish Ralf the best of luck in this next chapter of his career.”
The German manager took charge at the beginning of December after the club suffered a humiliating 4-1 defeat against Watford and parted ways with manager Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. Rangnick was brought in to lead the team through the remainder of the season and then move into a consultancy role. He will now take charge of Austria for their upcoming Nations League fixtures, against Croatia, Denmark and France in Group A1.
In one of his last press conferences as the manager, Rangnick had talked about how the club denied his requests of signing a new striker in the January transfer window. He said, "The answer at the time was there was no player on the market that could really help us -- there were a few. Diaz, who is now at Liverpool, Alvarez who will be at Manchester City in the summer, Vlahovic who at the time still was with Fiorentina. Those are just three of them that come across my mind now."
"We had four days off at the time and on the Sunday I was informed about the issues with Mason Greenwood and obviously Anthony Martial had already left and then I was aware that within four days we had some strikers missing and it might make sense, we were still in three competitions -- Champions League, FA Cup and fourth in the league but that's the past and it doesn't help us anymore."
"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," Rangnick added.