Ralf Rangnick
Ralf Rangnick has questioned whether Manchester United players are fit enough to meet his pressing demands. Southampton coach Ralph Hasenhuttl said the Saints ‘came into the game’ after United struggled to maintain their pressing after the 40-minute mark in the teams’ 1-1 stalemate at Old Trafford. Rangnick acknowledged United are a technically-minded side but questioned their endurance and physicality, having said they were not ‘nasty’ enough against Southampton.
Ralf Rangnick said: “To be honest, I don’t know if we are not fit enough to play that way because, as you said, I came in the middle of the season, we had no pre-season and, in essence, we had in total two weeks in total in between where we could train in a normal way. If I watched the team in training that is being prepared for games I wouldn’t allow myself to say we are not fit enough to play like that. I don’t think this is the case because then we would also struggle in the last 20 minutes of the game and then in the game against Burnley and today we showed that we are physically able to play forward. We didn’t always take the right decisions. We weren’t always composed and we weren’t structured enough in the way we played in the first-half compared to the way we played in the last half hour, we were a little bit erratic in those moments. I would have wished us to stay a bit calmer and cooler. But we had the chances. I don’t think it’s a question of physicality with regard to fitness but yes, it might well be. As I said, the players we have are technical players, they like to play technical football. But in the Premier League, no matter against which team – and especially in games like those against Southampton – you cannot win games only in a technical way. You also have to show some physicality.”
