Do you know who Krasimir Balakov is?

If someone mentioned Ebbe Sand’s name when talking about football, would you be able to stand it?

On January 19, Manchester United recorded a 3-1 win over Brentford away. It was a good result, backed up by a decent second-half performance that showed a glimpse of the style of football Ralf Rangnick was trying to bring to the club. The match also saw an early substitution for Cristiano Ronaldo and a moment when the caretaker manager and star striker appeared to be at odds.

“That’s normal – a striker wants to score,” Rangnick told BT Sport immediately after the game, but such was the oddity of a manager grabbing a player’s sleeve like a disappointed schoolteacher, which Rangnick was against when asked about the incident several days later. It was during his pre-match press conference for United’s next game against West Ham that Rangnick was asked if he had spoken to Ronaldo again since the substitution.

“I wonder how you handle the situation because he (Ronaldo) is such a big name, he gets so much attention and any type of discontent is flagged and amplified.” He was then asked, “How do you handle that?”

“Well, I think we shouldn’t make too much of a fuss about it. I can only speak for myself and my coaching staff. I explained this to him, even during the game when we had this little chat after scoring the third goal,” was Rangnick’s sensible response.

But then, as Rangnick often does in press conferences, he kept talking. Elaborating further on why he didn’t believe it was a big deal. That’s when we had Mr. Balakov and Mr. Sand.

“His reaction was emotional, but that’s not a problem at all. I’ve managed other players, maybe not with such a big name like Cristiano, but I’ve also had players like Krasimir Balakov , like a young Klaas Huntelaar, or Raul at Schalke, Ebbe Sand. So I know how attacking players behave and react to this kind of substitution, but again, it’s about our team, it’s about score points.

Balakov is a now retired Bulgarian striker who played under Rangnick at VfB Stuttgart in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Sand is a Danish striker who was with Rangnick at Schalke between 2004 and 2005 before retiring in 2006.

Most managers would have simply used Huntelaar or Raul to make their point, but Rangnick’s response was one of many instances where he went to a press conference with the initial presence of mind to acknowledge a question. potentially difficult…. only to elaborate to a confusing point and create the potential for tough headlines in the future. Rangnick’s response didn’t earn him much attention at the weekend – largely because United beat West Ham – but the act of comparing two retired players of moderate renown to one of the goalscorers best-known and most prolific people on the planet has created an opportunity for someone to ask, “Could you tell me more?” at a time when most football managers prefer to avoid elaborations.

Football managers are supposed to hate being hostages to fortune. Everything a manager does, from coaching and rostering to tactics and substitutions, is supposed to limit the opportunities for variances to sneak in and devastate the best-laid plans. In recent years, managers have come to recognize the press conference as another such area. Top club managers have now begun to use their weekly conversations with the media to lecture and talk about issues of their choosing, rather than risking the unpredictability that reporters can bring.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has rarely spoken about players from other football clubs in his press conferences, downplaying any previous associations with supposed transfer target Erling Haaland in favor of speaking to (and defending) the strikers he worked with at United. Future United manager Erik ten Hag has spent many weeks this season telling Dutch media he doesn’t want to talk about potential jobs in England, focusing on the Eredivisie title race with Ajax . Almost all managers have an “I’m not talking about that thing you’re asking me, so I’m talking about that thing instead” response style at press conferences.

Some managers use humour, others evoke figures or arbitrate decisions. Jose Mourinho’s infamous ‘If I talk, I’ll be in big trouble’ resonates as he balances the desire to be right with the need for self-preservation. At a time when almost any managerial press conference can be transcribed, downloaded and made available for public discourse, the modern football manager has had to be aware of the dangers of talking too much.

For much of his time at United, Rangnick chose not to use this style of response. If you ask him a question, he will answer frankly and honestly. After United’s 1-1 draw against Southampton, Athleticism asked if United could have conceded at the start of the second halves of three consecutive games due to something that happened during the half-time team chat. Rangnick responded by giving a detailed explanation of everything United were doing during their 15-minute interval, before giving us some additional information and saying that one of the real problems with the conceding team was “our team, with a lot of technical players, for them it’s difficult to stay compact for long”.

The German’s tenure at United has become a fascinating portrait of a man showing little promise in one part of his job before over-delivering in another. The club will finish the 2021-22 season with their worst Premier League result, and they will have managed more games this campaign than their predecessor Solskjaer. It’s not controversial to say that Rangnick failed to manage United’s dressing room and failed to successfully manage difficult situations on the pitch.

Still, there’s something about his press conferences – whether on Zoom or in person – that United fans (and writers) are interested in. He will often refer to United’s 1-0 victory over West Ham as the turning point in his tenure, citing the winning goal – a combined passing move from Ronaldo, Anthony Martial, Edinson Cavani and Marcus Rashford – as proof of the attacking talent that he had earlier in the season that can’t be counted on now. He would later tell in a press conference that he recommended the club use the last 48 hours of the January transfer window to try and replace some of those attacking talents, only to be told no.

At a press conference, most football managers try to make the connection between the fans’ desire for honesty and the private needs of their dressing room. Rangnick’s press conferences saw him speak with a level of candor rare at the highest level of the game. A section of United fans found some solace in his response “you don’t even need glasses to see and analyze where the problems are, now it’s about how to solve them” during a press conference, but United went on to lose 3-1 at Arsenal following his discussion. There is merit in the way Rangnick identified the problems at United and explained them to a wider audience. There are further questions as to why he has failed to address some of these issues during his months at the club.

Balakov is no Cristiano Ronaldo and Rangnick’s interviews have often been more entertaining than his football. But there is hope that, through those many wordy press conferences, Rangnick’s words have been heard. United will have to resolve much of their dysfunction over the summer, and the caretaker manager’s press conferences have given little hiding. If you think light is the best disinfectant, then Rangnick’s press conferences can be a valuable tool for those in and around the club as to what to do next.

Or as Rangnick himself once said: “If there’s one good thing about the season we’ve just had, it’s that everyone should know where and how big the problems are, and what it takes to raise the bar again and be a serious title contender again. That’s what it’s all about.”

(Top photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)