Erik ten Hag has hinted he can adjust to Manchester United's new transfer structure

Erik ten Hag and Ralf Rangnick never saw eye to eye. Rangnick thought the Red Bull connection could give United wings and Ten Hag quickly clipped them.

Six days after Ten Hag was introduced to the press at Old Trafford, United confirmed Rangnick had left, his consultancy contract shredded before it had become active. When Rangnick's role was raised at Ten Hag's terse press conference unveiling, he gruffly replied: "That is on the club." Everyone sensed there and then that their working relationship would be short.

Yet there Ten Hag was on Friday, acknowledging Rangnick's foresight. His pre-match briefing with the press centred almost entirely on United's injury toll. A colleague noted Manchester City had coped commendably without Erling Haaland, Ten Hag replied, "Yeah, but then they had Alvarez as a striker - it's not a bad replacement."

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Rangnick namechecked Alvarez in May 2022, revealing he was blocked from reinforcing United's attack in January after Mason Greenwood's indefinite suspension a day before transfer deadline day.

"The answer at the time was no, there is no player on the market who would really help us," Rangnick scoffed. "There were a few! [Luis] Diaz, who is now at Liverpool, Alvarez, who will be at Manchester City in the summer, [Dusan] Vlahovic, who at the time was still with Fiorentina. So those are just three of them that come across my mind now."

That unnerved United staff and Rangnick attempted a climbdown the following day at Brighton. It got buried by the small matter of Brighton battering United 4-0.

Rangnick did not mention Dejan Kulusevski, a