Ralf Rangnick says the Manchester United board shut down his request to sign a forward in the January transfer window.
United have had selection problems in attack in the second half of the season, having allowed Anthony Martial to join Sevilla on loan and lost Mason Greenwood following his arrest on suspicion of rape, assault and threats to kill.
Marcus Rashford and Edinson Cavani have not been able to fill the gap whenever Cristiano Ronaldo has not been available, which has prompted Rangnick to use Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes in the front line on occasion.
What did Rangnick say about the Man Utd board?
Rangnick says he urged the club to land an attacker and pointed out that Dusan Vlahovic, who ended up at Juventus, Luis Diaz - now at Liverpool - and incoming Manchester City forward Julian Alvarez were all available.
He told reporters: "The answer at the time was no, there was no player on the market that could really help us. [But] there were a few: Diaz who is now at Liverpool, Alvarez who will be at Manchester City in the summer, Vlahovic who at the time still was with Fiorentina.
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"Those are just three of them that come across my mind now," said Rangnick.
"We had four days off at the time and on the Sunday I was informed about the issues with Mason Greenwood and obviously Anthony Martial had already left and then I was aware that within four days we had some strikers missing and it might make sense.
"We were still in three competitions - Champions League, FA Cup and fourth in the league, but that's in the past and it doesn't help us anymore.
"I spoke to the board and said 'shouldn't we at least speak and try and analyse if we could get a player either on loan or as a permanent deal', but in the end the answer was no.
"I still believe that we should have at least tried. If we would've found and been able in 48 hours, 48 hours is short notice but it's still 48 hours. It might have been worth to try and internally discuss but we didn't and it was not done."
Getty ImagesRangnick sees a positive in Man Utd's bad season
With a place in next season's Champions League out of their reach and no trophies to fight for, United are coming to the end of a disappointing campaign.
But Rangnick believes there is a silver lining as the extent of their troubles have been exposed and he hopes new coach Erik ten Hag can help fix the club.
"If there is a good thing about the poor season we had so far it is that everybody now should be aware how big and where the problems are, what needs to be done to raise the level again and to be a serious title contender again.
"This is what it's all about. To me, it's obvious what needs to be done, this is what is most important," he added.
"Now it's time to look ahead, now we have two games to try to play as well as we possibly can, get as many points as we possibly can out of those two games and then together with Erik, together with the board, together with the scouting department, hopefully find and also convince the players.
"It's not only about finding them, scouting them, you also have to convince them to come to Manchester United."
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