Manchester United interim manager Ralph Rangnick has denied “nonsense” allegations that he spoke to Harry Maguire about giving up the captaincy, and awarding it to Cristiano Ronaldo.
A report in the British newspaper “Mirror”, Thursday evening, claimed that Maguire had spoken to Rangnick about giving up the captaincy, and that Cristiano Ronaldo He was ready to take it.
Ronaldo is an icon for young players at Manchester United, and the report indicated that Maguire felt marginalized by some players’ view of the Portuguese legend.
But, after Maguire criticized the allegations this morning as false, Rangnick went one step further by saying the rumors were “nonsense”.
Rangnick spoke at a match press conference Manchester United And Leeds, and the British newspaper “Metro” published his statements, and said: “Well at first, I must say that this is complete nonsense.”
He added: “I’ve never spoken to any player about a possible change of leadership, Harry is fully aware of that and so are Cristiano and all the other players.”
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He continued: “This has not been a problem for me, I am the one who decides who is the leader, so there is no need for me to talk about it with anyone else.”
“Harry is our captain and will remain our captain until the end of the season and there is nothing else to be said to add to that,” he stressed.
As always, it was another week in the headlines for Manchester United after Marcus Rashford was forced out to deny allegations of rifts in the dressing room.
But Rangnick insists the “false” stories don’t bother him and says players should block out the “noise”.
“I’m not disappointed at all because I know it’s not the truth, I’ve already told you Harry is the captain, it’s not a problem at all and it wasn’t a problem for us and myself as a manager,” the coach insisted.
“All other things, frankly, I don’t listen to that noise a lot because my entire focus is getting the team ready for the next training and the next match, but obviously I heard what was written.”
He stated: “I can only tell you from my personal experience in the last 11 or 12 weeks, yes, there were players who were unhappy until the transfer window closed because as I’ve always said, the squad was too big and we had too many players who realized they weren’t going to get it. on playtime.”
“I think this has definitely improved, from what I can tell you the atmosphere in the locker room is definitely better than it was a couple of weeks ago for the reasons we just talked about,” Rangnick added.