The debut came and gone, the maiden victory has been noted and Ralf Rangnick can now get back to the real work. The German tactician faced a difficult Crystal Palace team with a limited time of practice, less than an hour. Even the Sunday lunch preparation is taking longer than an hour, not to mention a Premier League game, but Rangnick did it. United showed flashes of gegenpress during the match with the Eagles, and it was enough for their new coach to be impressed. Manchester pressed but didn’t impress: Fred the unlikely scorer against PalaceThe game was not pretty, we haven’t seen so many chances, in fact the best one came from the visiting team, but still, the Red Devils managed to win with a minimal score. „I must admit I was surprised. I was a bit surprised, because not only did we play Thursday, a late kick-off, we had two days less to recover compared to Crystal Palace. And we had not even a full training session yesterday because it was 45 minutes, it was pouring. It was not just Manchester weather, it was disgusting, it was heavy, raining, windy, so it was almost impossible to train in a concentrated and focused manner. But they still did it. In those 45 minutes on the pitch we explained how we want to play, which manner we want to play and the rest was video footage, a lot of personal conversations with players, individual, in groups, explaining to them how we want to play. I didn’t expect them to play at that level after such a short time“ said the German after the game. Ralf Rangnick wins his first game as coach of Manchester United ✅ pic.twitter.com/GrPTTC9dYV— B/R Football (@brfootball) December 5, 2021 If somebody did a quick quiz among United’s fans with the question what would they like Rangnick to do first, the majority of answers would probably revolve around the starting 11. But, the German decided to stick with almost the same players (minus the injured ones) as Solskjaer, but changed the formation to 4-2-2-2 and explained his decision in detail. “For me, it was logical not to change too many positions or too many things after the win against Arsenal. Everyone was fully fit, nobody was injured, fully recovered, I started to play the same starting XI. For me, the question was how do we get pressure on the ball, how do we get control? So I decided to play 4-2-2-2 with two strikers, not Cristiano alone up front, together with Marcus, using pace for vertical balls. And, at the same time, with Jadon and Bruno on the two 10 positions, for the rest of the players it was the same. We had enough space with Bruno and Jadon in those 10 positions for our full-backs to play forward and ask for the ball on the wing. So they almost played like wing-backs. Especially in the first-half, Alex and Diogo, did extremely well offensively and that’s why I played 4-2-2-2. I’m a big fan of every player plays in his best possible position. The most challenging, demanding positions in that formation are the two 10s but I still think, especially when Palace was in possession, Bruno and Jadon did well. It was a little bit new but not that new, it doesn’t make that much difference if Jadon plays a little further inside or outside but defensively they both did well“ explained Rangnick.With more and more trainings, the players will be more focused on pressing and suffocating the opposition, and the good news for Rangnick is that he faces inferior opposition in the upcoming games: Norwich, Brentford, Brighton, Newcastle, Burnley.
