Rangnick surprised by United falling flat
RALF RANGNICK admits Manchester United have not made as much progress as he wanted in his first month as interim manager.
Rangnick took over from caretaker boss Michael Carrick in the wake of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sacking and is unbeaten in his first four games.
However, after starting out with a promising win over Crystal Palace in the Premier League, Rangnick has edged past bottom-of-the-table Norwich and snatched a fortuitous draw against second-bottom Newcastle ahead of tonight’s meeting with Burnley at Old Trafford.
The German had to wait for a work permit and his plans were disrupted by a Covid outbreak at United which saw their Carrington training base shut down and two fixtures postponed.
Asked if he was happy with the start, Rangnick replied: ‘Of course not. Every ambitious coach — and there is no difference between other coaches and myself in that area — wants to take faster steps and larger steps forward.
‘But to do that you need to be able to train, and as you know we had to close Carrington for four days. We had eight or nine players in training directly after the Norwich game, and they only came back in bits and pieces.
‘The last few days we were almost back to full strength with regard to the size of the squad but we couldn’t do that much in training.
‘On the other hand, in those two or three training sessions the team looked good and therefore the Newcastle game was a bit of a negative surprise, the way that we played with regard to game speed, game tempo and physicality.’
It has become apparent that Rangnick inherited an unsettled squad from Solskjaer, with morale said to be low and concerns over team spirit.
Anthony Martial, Phil Jones and Juan Mata could all go out on loan next month, while Amad Diallo’s temporary switch to Feyenoord is expected to be revived.
Paul Pogba, Edinson Cavani and Jesse Lingard are set to leave when their contracts run out in the summer, and Dean Henderson, Donny van de Beek and Eric Bailly also face uncertain futures.
Rangnick only has the January transfer window to strengthen before he is due to step down at the end of the season.
However, he may be limited to one major signing, with United sources insisting that the majority of their transfer business will be done in the summer.
Burnley boss Sean Dyche, meanwhile, has dismissed claims that his side are taking on misfiring United at the perfect time.
‘They’ve had a couple of challenging games where they maybe haven’t looked like what we’d expect from a United side,’ said Dyche. ‘But within that they still find key moments and have some very high-level players.
‘They have found ways of making moments count even though they are not purring.
‘We wouldn’t be naive enough to turn up and think there is a perfect time to play them.’