Ralf Rangnick has taken another dig at the underperforming Manchester United squad and accused them of not being physically prepared for matches.
The Red Devils were battered, bruised and beaten 4-0 by Liverpool at Anfield, as goals from Luis Diaz, Sadio Mane and a Mohamed Salah brace earned Jurgen Klopp’s side another memorable win over their old rivals. And while for Liverpool the dream of an unprecedented quadruple lives on, the thrashing left United with nowhere else to look but themselves.
In games against the two teams challenging for the Premier League title, United have shipped 15 goals and managed just one, a consolation in the 4-1 defeat at Manchester City last month. That record is even poorer when the fact United are battling on just one front in comparison to their north west rivals.
In a chastening opening spell, Liverpool opened the scoring after just two minutes with Luis Diaz tapping home from a Sadio Mane centre. And it went from bad to worse shortly after, with Paul Pogba forced off with an injury less than 10 minutes into proceedings.
The Frenchman, who is out of contract at the end of the season, limped off with a suspected calf injury, replaced by Jesse Lingard who put in a forgettable performance in his own big audition.
Speaking after the defeat, which served as another major blow in their race for a top-four spot, Rangnick bemoaned the fact that United have suffered a number of muscular injuries, considering they have the ‘luxury’ of no real fixture congestion. “Muscular injury in his calf…he pulled his muscle,” the United interim boss explained. “This is now the seventh or eighth player missing with injury and we’re only playing in one competition. It has to raise some questions.
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“I’m not happy about that at all, but this is the sad truth right now and we have to accept it.” Asked what may be causing the high number of injuries, Rangnick added: “Liverpool are playing in four competitions and have no injuries, this is also on how you train. What you do, what measures you take in order to recover and be fully fit. These are the questions that need to be asked.”
“You can change it, other clubs change it. Why should their players be fitter than our players? This is not something that has to be automatically like that.” Rangnick’s latest swipe comes less than a month after he told his players they need to toughen up, if they want to be a true Premier League force again.
“What was obvious in some parts of the game is that we were second best with regards to physicality,” he said after the draw with Leicester City at the start of April. “It was about one-on-one duels. Whenever there was body contact, we were too often second-best and that is something we have to get better at for the rest of this season, but even more so for next season. I just felt we could have been more dynamic, more physical, more aggressive, but we weren’t in those moments.
“It has to be a bit in the DNA of a player, to be honest. It's difficult to change, shall I say, a technically great player into a physical, aggressive player. We have a lot of people who are technical players.”
United remain in sixth place in the table following the loss on Merseyside, three points behind fourth-placed Tottenham, having played a game fewer than Antonio Conte’s side.
