Ralf Rangnick aims fresh dig at Man Utd squad and sends warning to Erik ten Hag over his players

Ralf Rangnick has doubled down on his criticism of Manchester United and the club's manager Erik ten Hag.

Rangnick, 66, took charge of United temporarily on an interim basis in 2021 before the club chose to appoint the former Ajax coach as his long-term successor.

Rangnick gave a famous press conference during his time in charge, referencing the club's need for 'open-heart surgery', with the former RB Leipzig man particularly critical of the state of the squad he had inherited.

He made just one signing during his brief stint at the helm and he is a player Erik ten Hag is particularly fond of, having decided to keep him with the first-team group during the summer.

And it seems he has seen little to shift his opinion since leaving Old Trafford, with Rangnick once again speaking out on the problems facing them during the international break.

The Austria manager told TV2: "I probably made that statement when the season was almost over about two years ago.

"It is probably only two or three weeks since Erik ten Hag was asked the same thing.

"Then he said that I was right in my analysis.

"I don’t know how many players they have signed since, but it looks like I was right."

Rangnick was rumoured to have been stepping into a consultancy role after his temporary spell in charge at Old Trafford.

Instead he decided to take a permanent job with the Austrian national team, leading them to the round of 16 at Euro 2024 this summer.

Having spoken boldly about the problems at Manchester United, Rangnick's past comments have since rang true again.

Ten Hag's men were beaten 3-0 by Liverpool before the international break and also lost against Brighton last month.

Ralf Rangnick has lost just one of his 14 games in charge of Austria (Image: Getty)

"You don’t even need glasses to see and analyse where the problems are," he said back in 2022.

"Now it’s about how do we solve them? It’s not enough to do some minor amendments – cosmetic things.

"In medicine you would say that this is an operation of the open heart. If this happens and everyone has realised that this has to happen and if people want to work together then it makes sense and I believe it doesn’t take two or three years to change those things.

"This can happen within one year."