Erling Haaland among four players Ralf Rangnick ‘told Manchester United they should buy this summer’ before handing over to Erik ten Hag

Erling Haaland was reportedly among four players ex-interim manager Ralf Rangnick told Manchester United to buy.

The German spent six months in temporary charge of the Red Devils as a stop-gap in between the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and recent appointment of Erik ten Hag.

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Rangnick was originally expected to become a director at the club following his short spell as manager, but instead took over the Austrian national team.

Nevertheless, the 64-year-old advised United on four players to target in the summer transfer window, according to the .

They were RB Leipzig trio Josko Gvardiol, Konrad Laimer and Christopher Nkunku, as well as new Manchester City striker Haaland.

While it is understood Rangnick acknowledged the difficulties of signing Haaland, he was especially keen on Croatia defender Gvardiol.

The Red Devils were briefly linked with Nkunku, before the forward signed a new deal, and so far United have signed Lisandro Martinez, Tyrell Malacia and Christian Eriksen instead.

Rangnick did not sugar-coat the issues at Man United, claiming the club was 'six years' behind Liverpool and in need of 'open heart' surgery.

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“I’m pretty convinced that he [Ten Hag] IS the best possible coach that you could get right now,” Rangnick said in April.

“All the other things, as sad as it is and as frustrating as it feels right now for everybody involved – and believe me, for me this is extremely, terribly frustrating because in the last 10 years, if not 15 years, we only experience success, myself also as a sporting director and as a football manager.

“But in football you’re not always on the bright side. Right now we’re on the other side.

“But the good thing about what happened, one of the very few good things, is that it’s crystal clear. It’s not that difficult (to see). You don’t even need glasses to analyse and to see where the problems are.

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“So, now it’s only about how do we solve them? For me, it’s clear it’s not enough to do some little, minor amendments, some little issues here and there, some minor cosmetic things.

“No, in medicine you would see this is an operation at the open heart, so there are more things to be changed than some little things here and some minor things there, and this is the good thing.

“If this happens, if everybody has realised that this has to happen and if people want to work together, then it makes sense and then I still believe that it doesn’t need to take two or three years to change those things.

“This can happen within one year. Other clubs not too far away from here have shown that it doesn’t take two, three, four years, that it’s possible within one, two or maybe three transfer windows.”