Manchester United decided to part ways with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a few weeks earlier after their disappointing start to the season. The Norwegian had been the manager of the club for almost three years. Following a short stint for Michael Carrick as caretaker manager, Ralf Rangnick was brought in as the interim manager till the end of the season, after which he is set to take a consultancy role at Old Trafford.
It is safe to say that there is a lot of excitement around the move, as the German is one of the most influential managers of this generation.
But then, there were a couple of concerns as well. One of them was how some of the veteran players would fit into Rangnick’s system, who is known to prefer young players.
As reported by the Mirror, Rangnick had said back in 2020:
"“It’s not my style to focus on a 38-year-old player, not because of talent, but because I prefer to create value and develop talent.“It made little sense to me the idea of relying on Ibrahimovic or Simon Kjaer, but that’s just my way of seeing things, it’s not necessarily right or wrong.”"
Rangnick appears to have made a U-turn since then though. Cristiano Ronaldo is expected to play a big part in his team and now, he had admitted that he is looking forward to having Edinson Cavani back as well:
"“I’m very much looking forward to hopefully next week having Rapha [Varane] back again, Edi Cavani.“My ambition to work with all the players for most of the season, reduce the number of injuries in the next couple of weeks and months, and have them all on board.”"
Rangnick makes U-turn after joining Manchester United
Both Ronaldo and Cavani are two of the best players of their generation. But there is no denying the fact that they are no longer in their primes.
Rangnick though is expected to stay in the managerial hot seat only till the end of the season. And as a result, it appears that he is looking to get the best out of this team in the short-term and turn their season around before looking at the long-term picture.
And in that scenario, both Ronaldo and Cavani can still be very important players in this team. The Portuguese legend has been scoring consistently since returning while the Uruguayan showed his quality in the second half of last season.