Flimsy Manchester United are rigged for failure and in need of rescue

If the hope for these interim months was that Manchester United might tread water before rescue, then the reality is they look an awful lot like a club slipping further beneath the waves.

With each passing game, the disparity between what Ralf Rangnick sees and what he is capable of fixing grows. If that rings as a criticism of his work at Old Trafford, then it should be balanced against recognition that he is operating in a structure rigged for failure by United’s busted recruitment system.

To hear him in the aftermath of Saturday’s draw with Leicester, a game contested flimsily by United, was to hear a manager with a number of plausible answers and a longing for his employers to allow the next guy, Erik ten Hag or otherwise, to implement them sensibly.

Increasingly, that new manager looks likely to be charged with getting United back into the top four, because lately there has been little to suggest Rangnick can bridge the gap to Arsenal in his final eight games.

Based on their form of the past two months, in which they have won only three of eight in the league and gone out of both Europe and the FA Cup, getting as high as fifth might have to be termed a more obtainable target.

Certainly, his most impactful work seems to be taking place behind the microphone rather than on the training pitch, with his latest observations honing in on flaws in the ‘DNA’ of his squad.

His thoughts were rooted in the sheer volume of challenges lost or shirked against Leicester, particularly when Kelechi Iheanacho scored. In the build-up, Bruno Fernandes leapt out of the way rather than engaging Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in a meaty tackle, moments after Fred lost a similar duel.

‘That is something we have to get better at and even more so for next season,’ said Rangnick.

‘It has to be a bit in the DNA of a player. It is difficult to change technically great players into a physical, aggressive player and we have a lot of people who are technical players.’

When it was put to Rangnick that United might have too many players lacking in key traits, his answer fed into a call for United to correct their transfer strategy.

‘Both Manchester City and Liverpool have been built together and recruited over a period of five or six years,’ he said. ‘All of them under the premises of how the coaches want to play. I told the board this is what has to happen.

‘Whenever the new head coach is clear, it has to be how does he want to play and what kind of players do we need. Then we come back to DNA, speed, physicality and tempo, what do we need? This team does not lack technical players, it can do with more physicality.’

All fixable in Rangnick’s estimation across ‘two to three’ sensible windows rather than ‘three or four years’, but it is indisputable that they should be doing more with what they currently have.

Much of that falls on Rangnick himself. With Cristiano Ronaldo ill and Edinson Cavani injured, the manager went with Fernandes as a false nine and the experiment was so flawed that it was dropped early in the second half, with Marcus Rashford brought on.

It is a measure of the latter’s struggles that he could not get a start, even in the absence of all other strikers.

‘It’s our job to help him get his confidence back,’ said Rangnick. ‘We all know Marcus can play better, but in the end there are steps he has to take himself.’

If there was a slender positive for United, it was that Harry Maguire played well after recent tribulations. Along with Fred, who scored their equaliser, he was the home side’s best player, though that says little on another of those days when United were lifeless and devoid of tactical identity.

The other bench was happier. ‘Each game we are getting back to our level,’ said Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers. That makes one side trending in the right direction.