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Former Bayern Munich and Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has reportedly urged Manchester United to sign Antonio Rudiger during talks between him and Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
Last weekend it emerged that Tuchel and Ratcliffe held a meeting in Monaco to discuss the former’s bid for the United manager’s job.
Tuchel has been mooted as a likely replacement for Erik ten Hag, whose United future has been up in the air.
It was even believed in Germany that Tuchel turned down the chance to continue with Bayern as he had already secured his place in the Old Trafford dugout.
However, Fabrizio Romano gave an update soon after and insisted that Tuchel will not take the United job despite talks with Ratcliffe.
Romano insisted that the German coach will go on a break before returning to football management.
As it turned out, United didn’t end up having to secure the services of anyone to succeed Ten Haga. David Ornstein of The Athletic broke the news on Tuesday night that Ten Haag remains in the United hot seat. This is after the club completed an end-of-season review.
Even more amazingly, Ten Haag is set to be handed a new two-year deal that will keep him at the Red Devils for the foreseeable future.
Reflecting on the events that led to United choosing to keep Ten Haag, The Times shed some light on what Tuchel and Ratcliffe discussed in Monaco.
The paper say that one of the questions that came up was the signing, with Tuchel dismissing Real Madrid’s Rudiger as someone he would like to join him at Old Trafford.
The Times said: “Tuchel dropped out of the competition after holding talks with Ratcliffe in Monaco last week.”
“One of Tuchel’s ideas was to sign Antonio Rüdiger, the 31-year-old Real Madrid centre-back who is out of United’s price range (they only have a gross budget of around £35m to spend this summer); considered too old; and he would rather stay at Real than play the Europa League at Old Trafford next season.”
Indeed, Rudiger is someone United would find incredibly difficult to land, even if Tuchel was appointed. This is because of the chasm between the Premier League and Madrid
United narrowly qualified for the Europa League after beating Manchester City at Wembley in the FA Cup final. Meanwhile, Rudiger played a key role as Los Blancos won a record 15th Champions League title.
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