Rangnick: Diaz, Alvarez, Vlahovic… Man United board said no

Manchester United interim coach Ralf Rangnick has revealed the club’s board was against bringing in a new striker during the January transfer window. 

The winter market saw the likes of Luis Diaz join Liverpool, Julian Alvarez move to Manchester City, and Dusan Vlahovic get snapped up by Juventus – but United signed zero players.

“I spoke to the board and said shouldn’t we at least speak and try and analyze if we could get a player either on loan or as a permanent deal but in the end the answer was no,” said Rangnick.

“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.” 

“We were also aware Edinson might not be available for eight out of 10 games, but we didn’t do it. There were a few: Diaz, who is now at Liverpool; Alvarez, who will be at Manchester City in the summer; and Vlahovic, who at the time was still with Fiorentina.”

“The answer was ‘no’ and that was it. I spoke to the board and told them ‘shouldn’t we at least speak and analyse and find if we can at least get a player, on loan or a permanent deal?”

United were reluctant to sign a striker because of the short timeframe available. They also did not want to sign a forward, knowing a new permanent manager was arriving in the summer and may not want that player.