We 'appointed' Luis Enrique as Man United manager with transformative results

Spain manager Luis Enrique is admired by Manchester United, with some reports suggesting he could replace Ralf Rangnick as manager at the end of the season.

Enrique joked last year that reports of him becoming United boss must have emerged on April Fools' Day, and with the World Cup being played over the Winter period this year it makes the Spaniard a more difficult appointment to make this summer. The 51-year-old took Spain to a Euro 2020 semi-final appearance, whilst introducing plenty of young, exciting players into the national team and playing a good brand of football.

Should the likes of Mauricio Pochettino and Erik ten Haag not be available this summer, the Spaniard is clearly a top manager and is being consistently linked with a role at the Reds at the end of the season, when Rangnick is expected to move into a consultancy position.

So, if Luis Enrique was to be appointed as United boss ahead of next season, what would the outcome be? To have a look, we simulated the entirety of the 2022/23 season in Football Manager 2022 with the Spaniard in charge of Manchester United.

To set up this simulation, we arranged for Enrique to replace Ralf Rangnick as Manchester United manager on FM22 at the end of the 2021/22 season until the end of the 2022/23 season to see how the Spanish manager performed. Rangnick was appointed as United's Director of Football as he entered his consultancy role at the club, following the arrival of Enrique as manager.

This is Enrique's in-game profile on Football Manager 2022.

The Spaniard is one of the best managers in the world based on his managerial attributes, preferring a tiki-taka play style in a 4-3-3 formation that uses one defensive midfielder and two box-to-box midfielders to support