Manchester United are still in a top-four race even if their form this season probably should have ruled them out of a place in the Champions League spots. However, with Tottenham Hotspur dropping points alongside Arsenal this weekend — both losing 1-0 on Saturday — the 3-2 win over Norwich means United are within three points of fourth spot.
With Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea around the corner, however, it seems that United will likely slip up again, given how many problems they were given by the team currently lying at the bottom at the Premier League. So maybe in some ways, Ralf Rangnick needs to be looking towards next season and the future of the club.
Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba started the game yesterday; given the quality of the latter it was expected that he would start with the injuries to Scott McTominay and Fred. The former was a surprise starter given this was his first start under Rangnick since the 4-2 win at Leeds on February 20th.
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But what both have in common is their contracts are expiring in 2023. The Manchester Evening News understands that Pogba is unlikely to sign a new contract with the club and, given the fans' reactions to his performance yesterday — which were over the top but showed the strength of feeling — it shows that they don't want him there either.
Juan Mata and Nemanja Matic also made an appearance off the substitute bench and were undoubtedly two of United's better players. But what these players all have in common is they will not be at the club next season and it was strange to see these two players taking the field while Hannibal Mejbri and Alejandro Garnacho stayed on the bench.
Rangnick had warned this could be the case in his pre-match press conference, saying: “I think it’s good for Hannibal for example or for Alejandro [Garnacho] to train with us now for the last couple of days and weeks. But we are not playing any friendly games or games where we say ‘okay, now we give a young player an opportunity to play.”
And United fans were very clear about what they thought of the decision. These are some of the responses from Twitter:
Garnacho was making his first appearance in the first-team squad, so it was unlikely that he was going to get minutes, but Hannibal has been in and around the first-team for months now and has not even had a cameo appearance under Rangnick.
With a crisis in midfield, it seemed the perfect opportunity to see what the young Tunisian midfielder could do, even if it was only for the last 15 minutes, but this was not the case. When Rangnick gave Elanga his chance it seemed like youth would be given more of a chance, but it seems with top-four still in reach this will not be the case.
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