Being the manager of Britain’s biggest and best supported football club can be as pressured as it is thrilling.
At least that is what I would imagine.
Obviously, very few get the opportunity and the nearest I ever had was playing Championship Manager as a football-mad teenager.
The man tasked with the job, certainly until the end of the season, is Ralf Rangnick – a figure with an accomplished portfolio but someone who wouldn’t have appeared on the radar of most Premier League football fans (often the best appointments aren’t) when the interim position cropped up a few weeks ago.
Indeed, based on his initial press conference, the 63 year-old German may even try to tempt his superiors to prolong his stay in the dugout beyond next summer.
It all started well last weekend as the Red Devils edged out Crystal Palace, less than 72 hours after creating plenty of Premier League highlights for the neutral, despatching Arsenal in a five goal thriller as the new man looked on.
Rangnick says he feels most comfortable in the dugout, despite spending much of the past nine years out of management, primarily as a sporting director for RB Leipzig, RB Salzburg and Lokomotiv Moscow.
He will surely know the scale of the task that awaits him and, rather than approach it with trepidation, will aim to embrace the challenge after a tough month in Manchester which left this observer – and many others – begging the club to put a fans’ favourite out of his misery.
Rangnick has spoken in glowing terms about the potential of the squad he has inherited, although conceded that the club had lost its identity since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
His career actually tells us that he doesn’t indulge stars, he makes them.
So, what happens when the ultimate long-term project builder takes a short-term job at a club and in a league fixated on snap judgments?
It will be fascinating to see events unfold.
Rangnick has already become the first Manchester United manager in 20 years to appoint a full-time sports psychologist as he wants to “get into the hearts, brains and blood” of his players.
It is certainly early days and eight games in a mere 30 December days may make it virtually impossible to start implementing some of his more complex ideas.
What comes next, though, will be as compelling as it is likely to be crucial for the longer-term aspirations of this wonderful football club.
Despite what can only be described as a month from hell from mid-October to mid-November, the SBOTOP Premier League betting odds still expect the Red Devils to secure a top four finish – granted, the gap between them and the top three sides is huge.
Right now, many United followers would take that.
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