Ralf Rangnick does not believe Manchester United require an overhaul in the summer window to compete for the title next season despite being 19 points behind Manchester City with 16 games left to play of this campaign.
United’s position means it will realistically be a decade at least since they were last league champions. And with the team knocked out of the FA Cup by Middlesbrough on Friday, which follows being eliminated from the Carabao Cup, their trophy drought is set to stretch to six years unless an unlikely Champions League triumph is achieved.
Given all of this Rangnick was asked if the squad required major surgery to challenge for a 21st title next season. “I don’t think so. Overall, the development of the team and its performances the last couple of weeks have improved,” the 63-year-old said.
“There are two points of criticism that we have to face regarding the Middlesbrough defeat. One: we wasted too many clear-cut chances – we had 22 shots inside the box, 10 were massive opportunities, and we should easily have been 3-0 up at half-time. It should have been 6-1 or 6-2 by the end.
“And the other one is 10 seconds before we conceded, it was a perfect counter-pressing situation inside their half, we took time away from them but not the ball and eight seconds later we were outnumbered in our box. Those are the two things I fault the team with. But we invested a week into the gameplan and many of the things we worked on were shown against Middlesbrough.”
The interim manager will include Jesse Lingard and Edinson Cavani in United’s squad for the trip to Burnley on Tuesday after they were granted extra time off and missed the Middlesbrough defeat.
Cavani was excused because of jet lag after playing for Uruguay while Rangnick stated Lingard had asked not to be considered in order to clear his head after not being allowed a loan move in January. Lingard, though, subsequently claimed on Twitter that it was the club who wanted him to take the break.
Asked if the striker and midfielder will travel to Turf Moor, Rangnick said: “They’re both available and will be part of the squad. Both are top professionals and have been training well.
“With regard to Jesse, I have a very good relationship with him, he knows I would have been willing to let him go [on loan] at least until the issue with Mason [Greenwood] came up. He [Lingard] mentioned some personal issues [why he wanted a break]. There are no problems whatsoever between myself and Jesse and vice versa.”
As with Lingard, Anthony Martial used social media to deny a claim from Rangnick that he had asked to be left out of the squad, in Martial’s case for the 2-2 draw at Aston Villa last month. The manager said he preferred it if players did not voice their disquiet publicly.
“It’s always better,” Rangnick said. “I always communicate with the players directly. I did that with Anthony Martial and Jesse but maybe I’m a different kind of generation so for me it’s always better to communicate directly.”
