Ralf Rangnick abandoned his attempts to turn Manchester United into a pressing team after just his second Premier League game in charge of the club. The 63-year-old blamed a lack of physical conditioning and a squad unsuited to carrying out those demands as the reasons for his change of heart, citing Cristiano Ronaldo’s inability to press from the front as an issue. Rangnick had been in charge for just over a week when United made the trip to Carrow Road and they had pressed aggressively in his first game against Crystal Palace, which came after just one training session. The plans were soon shelved, however, although Rangnick admits he might have made too many compromises as a result.
Ralf Rangnick said: “At one stage, even when we played away for example at Newcastle or Norwich, we just realised that it was difficult. We had no pre-season, we couldn’t really physically develop and raise the level of the team. But again, believe me, I am the one who is most disappointed about that and frustrated about that. At one stage we just had to find compromises – attacking a little bit deeper, how can we make sure that we get our offensive players into their positions? Cristiano scored a few goals but, again, Cristiano – and I’m not blaming him at all, he did great in those games – but he’s not a pressing monster. He’s not a player – even when he was a young player – he was not a young player who was crying, shouting ‘hurray, the other team has got the ball, where can we win balls?’. And the same with quite a few other players so we had to make some compromises at one stage, maybe we made a few too many – that’s also possible – but, as I said, we never found the right balance between what do we need with the ball and without the ball. Even in possession, when we were in possession of the ball, we didn’t create as many chances as we should have done.”
Ronaldo was highlighted as a potential issue in Rangnick’s attempts to get United to press when he was first appointed as interim manager, but his goals were too valuable to live without, with 12 goals during his reign.
