Former Manchester United defender Phil Jones has revealed that he once “lost it” with Ralf Rangnick after their former interim boss made him a “scapegoat”.
66-year-old Rangnick replaced Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Man Utd during the 2021/22 season as he was made interim manager towards the end of 2022.
Rangnick arrived with the view to taking up a consultancy role at the end of the season, but he left after butting heads with club chiefs and became the manager of the Austria national team in April 2022.
On the pitch, Man Utd continued to be a disaster under Rangnick as they finished sixth in the Premier League and only collected 58 points. However, he has since been proven right about matters off the field after he claimed the club required “open-heart surgery” if they were to move forward.
One of Rangnick’s low points at Man Utd came in April 2022 as his side suffered a 4-0 loss to arch-rivals Liverpool at Anfield.
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Jones started as part of a back three alongside Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof, while Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Diogo Dalot played as wing-backs.
Early goals from Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah saw Liverpool take a 2-0 lead into the break and Jones was taken off for Jadon Sancho during the interval.
Jones has reflected on this match in a new interview. He has revealed that he “completely lost it” and was “raging” with Rangnick.
“I’ve never lost my head in a dressing room and I’ve never been emotional enough to lose myself in the dressing room, and I think that’s the only time in my career that I completely lost it,” Jones said on the High Performance podcast.
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“I was absolutely raging. Raging. That he humiliated me. Humiliated me in front of an Anfield crowd first and foremost, fearsome rivals, and the fans and my family and the players.
“We were 2-0 down at half-time, weren’t great, I don’t think we had a shot on target first half. Nothing was coming off. And I’d actually done alright in the game.”
He added: “I’m not saying I was exceptional but I definitely didn’t deserve to come off at half-time. There were far worse players on the pitch that day, I was the easy one to come off. You’re an easy scapegoat.
“At half-time I remember Ralf came in and said, ‘I’m going to make a change, Phil’s going to come off’.
“I remember the whole dressing room went like [eyes open] as if to say, ‘is he bringing Phil off here?’ I took my boots off and I slammed them on the floor and I said, ‘you’re taking the p*** out of me’.”
