Krishnan Sreekumar
Fabrizio Romano gives an update on Luis Enrique potentially taking over at Manchester United
According to football journalist, Fabrizio Romano on Twitter, Manchester United are set to suffer a blow in their bid to appoint Luis Enrique as their new permanent manager, with the Spaniard committing to his current role as Spain’s head coach.
Man United are currently on the hunt for someone to replace Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as the next manager of the club, after the club sacked him late last year following a string of poor results that saw them slip down the Premier League table.
Ralf Rangnick was roped in from Lokomotiv Moscow to steady the ship on an interim basis until the end of the season, with the German tasked with guiding the side to a top-four finish by the end of the campaign.
The former RB Leipzig head coach is currently trying to lift the Manchester side up from the sixth place in the table, with the team in danger of missing out on qualifying for the Champions League next term with Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur occupying the places above them. The Gunners, in particular, pose a threat with the side having a game in hand to further consolidate their grip on the fourth spot.
“There is no other position”
Given the state of things this campaign, the Red Devils are looking to bring in a new permanent manager once Rangnick’s tenure is complete to usher in a new era at Old Trafford and lead the side to trophies once again. Enrique had been touted as a potential candidate for the job, with the ex-Real Madrid player having plenty of admirers on the United board.
However, the 51-year-old has seemingly ruled himself out of the running for the vacancy at the Theatre of Dreams, with the manager declaring that his sole focus was on representing his country at the FIFA World Cup, due to take place in Qatar later this year.
“There is no other position that I want more than to represent my country in the World Cup in Qatar.”
This comes as a blow to Man United, who were keen on having the manager as a potential option to lead the Manchester side next season, although the club hierarchy were aware that the efforts to rope him in for the role was ‘more than complicated’, as described by Romano.
It was always going to be difficult to convince the Spaniard to become the next Red Devils head coach, given his ties and commitment to the Spanish national football team and the timing of the World Cup mid-season in the 2022/23 campaign.
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Despite the chances of it happening to be low, there was always hope that we could nab Enrique to be our manager. At a time when our fiercest rivals boast of world-class bosses like Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Thomas Tuchel, and Antonio Conte, we were in desperate need of an elite coach to lead us, and the incumbent Spain boss was an ideal option to consider.
The man who led Barcelona to the treble and Spain to a UEFA Nations League runners-up medal, he is one of the few coaches out there in the game who was widely regarded to be one of the best in the business. His commitment to his current role will be a big blow to United, and we now need to set our sights on other options.
