Departures at Manchester Airport was a happy place to be on Saturday night as several United players headed for the sunshine.
A 13-day gap between the Premier League fixture with West Ham and the FA Cup fourth-round tie with Middlesbrough allows for some rest and recuperation, with the squad granted some time off this week.
With the opportunities for a holiday few and far between during the season, players were heading for flights on Saturday night, with Dubai always a popular destination.
The reclining seats of first-class would have felt even more luxurious after the win against the Hammers, secured in the 93rd minute and sparking the kind of scenes Old Trafford hasn’t seen enough of this season.
Marcus Rashford’s dramatic winner brought wild celebrations on the pitch amongst a squad that is lacking morale more than it's lacking team spirit, according to some close to the dressing room.
A week that has produced seven points from nine should aid that and it was clear how much the three points against West Ham meant to the squad and to Ralf Rangnick.
United have navigated a disastrous collapse at Aston Villa and a woeful first half at Brentford to actually take control of the race for fourth again. It has turned into an ideal week, even if frustrations at throwing away a two-goal lead at Villa Park will linger.
It was easy to see the endorphins being released at full-time on Saturday and surmise that the Rangnick era now has lift-off. But not only are the signs on the pitch becoming more positive, but United now have conditions that could be ideal for building on the positivity.
They haven’t put all the elements of Rangnick’s style together yet and after Saturday’s drama the 63-year-old said his players had to improve on the ball, but in isolation this week they’ve ticked a lot of boxes.
In the second half at Brentford, they attacked with impressive directness. All three goals came about via vertical passes, two of them immediately after a United player ( Scott McTominay on both occasions) had won the ball back.
The greatest benefit to pressing is winning the opportunity to play against an unstructured defence and in west London, United exploited those gaps perfectly. It felt like a Rangnick attack.
They couldn’t reproduce that against West Ham, at least not until injury-time, but they had more control of that game than any other since Rangnick’s first match in charge. It was probably their best defensive performance of his reign and that was due to the fact they dominated the spaces and controlled the flow of the game. David de Gea was untroubled — which hasn’t been said very often this season.
The challenge now is to put these facets of a game together over 90 minutes, but when United’s players return to Carrington after their mini-break they will have a significant block of training before the cup game with Middlesbrough.
If Rangnick has only had the opportunity to work on his methods in small bursts so far, this is the chance to lay some real groundwork for the final five months of the season, especially with a squad that is returning to full fitness, with Paul Pogba expected back against Middlesbrough or Burnley.
There’s reason to be hopeful that when this break is over United will look more like a Rangnick team than ever before. If the interim manager has taken time to win over his players, then this week should have completed the job.
After the drama of Saturday, morale should be lifted and so should faith in Rangnick’s methods. Results are the best way to the players’ hearts, after all. If they looked at a sparse coaching CV over the last decade and wondered what upside the German could bring to Old Trafford, they might now be seeing it.
There are daunting tasks on the horizon, including trips to Atletico Madrid and Manchester City by the first week in March, but United should progress to the FA Cup fifth round and a run of league games taking in Burnley, Southampton, Watford and Leeds should really present a chance to re-establish their credentials in a top four, rather than watching a top three dominate.
It’s been a positive week for United and Rangnick, but there should be more to come.
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