Anthony Elanga is on the verge of leaving Nottingham Forest after Newcastle United agreed to pay an eye-watering £55 million for his services. Forest will be making a cool £40 million profit on the 23-year-old, who the Tricky Trees signed from Manchester United in 2023.
Elanga, who has scored four goals in 22 games for Sweden’s national team, initially came through the ranks at Man Utd - the club he joined aged 12. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer handed Elanga his first appearances for the Red Devils before the club legend was sacked and replaced by interim head coach Ralf Rangnick.
While Rangnick didn’t manage to convince every United player that he had what it took to manage one of the world’s biggest football clubs - including, most notably, Cristiano Ronaldo - the current Austria head coach has ultimately been proved right about a number of things since his departure at the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
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6 Things Ralf Rangnick Was Right About at Manchester United
Ralf Rangnick was not afraid to call out Manchester United's shortcomings during his brief spell as the club's interim manager.
Rangnick Cast His Verdict on Anthony Elanga
United's interim manager was a huge fan
Anthony Elanga at Manchester United
One player who impressed Rangnick more than most, even if he wasn’t anywhere close to being one of the team’s star players at the time, was Elanga. Rangnick was a huge fan of the youngster and even described the Swede as a ‘role model’ that his teammates should look to learn from.
“He is playing as though it is a dream come true, it is a joy and fun to watch him play, I wish a few other players would take him as an example and as a role model,” Rangnick said of Elanga after the forward scored against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.
“He’s just enjoying himself on the pitch and he’s fully aware of his strengths, his assets, his weapons. He’s always trying to play and show those weapons.”
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Rangnick’s call for other United players to use Elanga as a role model was seen as a thinly-veiled dig at Marcus Rashford at the time. While Rangnick was an admirer of Rashford’s technical abilities, his performance levels under the interim coach often left a lot to be desired. In 22 appearances under Rangnick, the England international only managed to score two goals.
Several weeks before Rangnick’s departure from Old Trafford, he once again hailed Elanga while speaking to Man Utd’s media team. Discussing Elanga’s chances of continuing to improve under Dutch coach Erik ten Hag, Rangnick said: “Well, since he is a clear head, since he is a top mentality player, I’m sure he can take and make the next steps, which are also important for him to take.
“It’s not for him an issue of character or mentality. I’m pretty sure, whenever I saw him train or play, even in the first training session the night before the Crystal Palace game, I knew his name but had never seen him play before. So I asked my coaching staff at the time, Kieran [McKenna] and Darren Fletcher: ‘Who is he? I haven’t seen him play before’.
“Since then, he has always been a player who gave his very best, where I could always be assured what kind of level, physical level and mentality level, he will invest.”
However, Elanga struggled for starts under Ten Hag and failed to score in 26 appearances during the 2022-23 campaign. This led to his £15 million move to Nottingham Forest, where he went on to exceed expectations.
Would he still be a Man Utd player right now if Rangnick had stayed at the club? While we’ll never know for sure, it’s patently clear that the German tactician will surely be feeling proud about how the livewire forward is currently proving him right.