Ralf Rangnick Namedrops Luis Diaz, Julian Alvarez And Dusan Vlahovic In Press Conference After Transfer Revelation Emerges

Ralf Rangnick says Manchester United turned down his request to sign a striker in January.

In the final 48 hours of the transfer window, United's interim boss attempted to bring in a forward. Mason Greenwood was suspended by the club following allegations made against the player, and Anthony Martial was allowed to go on loan to Sevilla until the end of the season.

United interim manager Rangnick was keen to bring another forward on board towards the end of the January window but his attempts were rebuffed. Why? Because the scouting department at Old Trafford claimed there was no one was available on the market.

In a recent press conference, Rangnick explained the situation in detail, while naming Liverpool's Luis Diaz, Juventus' Dusan Vlahovic and Julian Alvarez, who agreed a five-year deal with Manchester City on transfer deadline day, in an eye-opening revelation.

Here is what Rangnick said in full:

"The answer at the time was no there was no player on the market that could really help us," the German said.

"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.

"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.

"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."

Rangnick went on to speak about rebuilding the current squad at Old Trafford after a poor season in all competitions.

"If there is a good thing about the poor season we had so far it is that everybody now should be aware of how big and where the problems are, and what needs to be done to raise the level again and to be a serious title contender again.

"This is what it's all about – to me it's obvious what needs to be done, this is what is most important.

"If there hadn't been any problems before I came I wouldn't have come, probably Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] would still be sat here answering your questions.

"There were some problems the team already had at the end of November and as we all know in the first couple of months until the end of January we were improving, we conceded less goals, we had a point average of 2.1 after the West Ham game but then in that international break we lost three players and we had problems to score goals and find our balance.

"Now it's time to look ahead, now we have two games to play try to play as well as we possibly can, get as many points as we possibly can out of those two games.

"Then together with Erik, together with the board, together with the scouting department, hopefully find and also convince the players, it's not only about finding them, scouting them you also have to convince them to come to Manchester United."