Ralf Rangnick said Cristiano Ronaldo produced his best performance for weeks in Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Brighton. Ronaldo ended his six-game goal drought with a thunderous strike in the 51st minute and for his 15th club goal of the season and should have scored more but wasted two presentable headed chances.
Ralf Rangnick said: “An amazing goal. Not only an important one but an amazing goal and I think overall it was a good performance by Cristiano. Energetically, he was always trying to help teammates and I think in the last weeks definitely the best performance by him and a very, very important goal for us.”
Brighton outplayed United in the first-half but were undone when Yves Bissouma was dispossessed by Scott McTominay and Ronaldo latched onto the loose ball to larrup it past goalkeeper Robert Sanchez. Centre-back Lewis Dunk was sent off three minutes later for denying Anthony Elanga a goalscoring opportunity but Brighton still unnerved United despite their numerical disadvantage. United came perilously close to a fourth consecutive 1-1 draw as Jakub Moder hit the crossbar and Danny Welbeck nodded over in the 90th minute.
Ralf Rangnick added: “Big win but we still have quite a few games to play after three draws. Two of them at home. This was a very important win and even so after the first-half today, today for a change we had a better second-half than the first-half and in the second-half it paid off, we were more aggressive, we were primed to intercept and attack them in higher positions, so a highly important win for us. It was different from the last three games because we were Dr Jekyll in the first-half and this time in the second-half. I think it’s better in the second-half when it’s still 0-0 we can win the game in the end. Today it was only about getting the three points. After the first-half, everyone could see it was not an easy game. They are in big form, they did extremely well with a diamond in midfield, it was very difficult to intercept and get hold of the ball. We had three or four transitional moments in the first-half, even in the first-half we had the better chances but they had too long periods of time with the ball and the supporters realised that and they were a little bit anxious and nervous in the first half and we had to take more risks in the second-half and attack them in higher positions.”
