Rangnick: Diaz, Alvarez, Vlahovic were available... but Man Utd said no

Manchester United interim manager Ralf Rangnick has revealed his late attempts to sign a forward in January were rejected by the club’s board, leaving them short of striking options in the second half of the season.

United allowed Anthony Martial to join Sevilla on loan in January before Mason Greenwood was suspended indefinitely by the club with just three days left of the transfer window.

Rangnick was hoping United might act quickly to bolster the squad before deadline day and mentioned Liverpool forward Luis Diaz, who has been a revelation since arriving from Porto on January 30, as one of the potential solutions along with Dusan Vlahovic, signed by Juventus, and Julian Alvarez, who will join Manchester City this summer.

Instead United failed to act and have been almost entirely reliant on Cristiano Ronaldo as a source of goals, with injury limiting Edinson Cavani to just six appearances this year.

Rangnick's side have scored just 13 in their last 10 league matches, nine of them from Ronaldo.

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

"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 and 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.

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