Maybe Ralf Rangnick wants his players to play ‘Gengenpress’, but they are not playing it at the moment. If you don’t believe that, interim manager (the same Ralf Rangnick) will tell you so: his players are not pressing enough. But looking at his six games in charge, including the Wolves defeat, it’s hard to figure out what exactly Manchester United players are doing. They are certainly not pressing, but they are not defending either, or attacking. You name it, they don’t do it. It seems that the honeymoon between Rangnick and the British public (fans and pundits) is already over. Fans are furious with Red Devils performances, TV pundits are questioning his tactics and even the players are challenging the manager.The German is not the savior – United lose at Old TraffordBut in all that chaos, Rangnick tried to be reasonable, and refused to give the fans any assurance about the main target – a Champions League place.”I cannot make any guarantees. Look at today’s performance, if I say we are 100% convinced we will finish in the top four I don’t know if people will believe that. We didn’t play well at all individually or collectively. Moutinho could shoot unmarked with no problems, no pressure. We’re very disappointed about the result and parts of our performance. They’re playing with four or five central midfielders and we had problems to control that part of the pitch. We decided to change our formation and we had more control – they didn’t have as many chances – but we missed our chances and we have to admit they deserved to win. We didn’t press at all. We tried but we were not able to get into those pressing situations” Rangnick told Sky Sports after the match.Paul Scholes on Instagram pic.twitter.com/CR3B5ocB1e— Mike (@mikec60) January 3, 2022 Luke Shaw confirmed what was evident for some time – that United players are not 100% committed and put the pressure on Rangnick to find the solution. “Us players, we have been here a long time, maybe tonight we struggled, I didnt think we were all there together. We need to bring the intensity and more motivation. Inside the dressing room, we know what we want but out on the pitch we need to give 100%. To win these types of games we all need to be 100% committed. It is tough and disappointing. We have time now to refocus, we’ve got a long training week and maybe the manager can bring some more ideas for what he wants on the pitch” said Show.pic.twitter.com/m7M6LMsZNY— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) January 3, 2022 Former midfielder Paul Scholes certainly wasn’t happy with the performance and in the moments following the goal he took to his Instagram story to write: “F****** joke,” accompanied with a series of poop and house emojis. After the game, Jamie Redknapp questioned Rangnick tactics, and also pointed out that United need a long-term solution.“We speak about managers coming into the game and he came in with this famed 4-2-2-2 system – it doesn’t work. When you come here, you have to have the right players, it doesn’t matter what system you play. Then he went to a three at the back, today he played 4-4-2 and at the end of it, I think he’s making up systems. There was no real identity of how they were trying to play. At Liverpool it took 30 years until you found Jurgen Klopp. Man United need to find their Klopp. I see too many players playing within themselves. You can’t think you’ve made it in this game. The reason Man City are the best team is because they work harder than everyone else. Right now United are putting in these performances too often” said Redknapp.
