Rangnick defends United’s body language after draw
Manchester United boss Ralf Rangnick has told his players to get physical after they were branded “a bunch of whinge-bags” by former defender Gary Neville.
TV pundit Neville launched a half-time tirade during United’s 1-1 draw at struggling Newcastle on Monday evening in which substitute Edinson Cavani’s second-half equaliser at St James’ Park rescued a point.
Asked about the former United full-back’s comments after the game, Rangnick said: “I don’t think today it was a problem of body language, it was more a question of physicality, of meeting the demands with regard to speed, tempo, physicality. The side-effect is the body language afterwards.
“But I don’t think that was the major problem today for us, the major problem was the way that we played in those moments when it was about physicality.”
Neville was withering in his assessment of the visitors’ first-half display after seeing them go in at the break trailing to Allan Saint-Maximin’s seventh-minute strike.
He said: “They’re a bunch of whinge-bags. Watch them on that pitch. I’ll not go into names, but they’re whinging at each other, arms up in the air complaining about everything. Honestly, they were absolutely shocking in that first half.
“They got the last manager the sack. Ralf Rangnick is not going to get the sack, he’s only had two or three weeks with them, but they’ll get a lot of managers the sack if they carry on like that, because that’s a really, really poor performance.”
Cavani’s71st-minutestrike gotUnitedoutofjail,buthadit not been for a post and a brilliant save by David De Gea, either Jacob Murphy or Miguel Almiron could have won it for the Magpies at the death.
Rangnick said: “We didn’t play good. The first half after
having been down 1-0 after seven minutes, we just had too many unforced errors, too many give-aways when we were in possession of the ball –includingthegoal,bytheway – and that didn’t make life any easier for us in this game.
“Of course, it was a massive push for Newcastle and in the first half, we didn’t play good at all. I was not happy with the performance in the first half. It was better in the second half, but still not on the kind of level that we would have to play in order to control games.”