Manchester United showed character against Chelsea despite missing key players
Ralf Rangnick believed Manchester United showed character against Chelsea despite lossing key players before the match.
Manchester United interim boss Ralf Rangnick claims his side show lots of character against Chelsea in their clash at Old Trafford last night.
It would have been one of the worst performances for the Red Devils last night if they were unable to equalize the goal in the second half.
Points were shared between both team following Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal few minutes after Marcos Alonso scored for the Blues.
Rangnick believed his side showed good attitude despite missing some of the key players to before the clash and only having 13 professional players to select from.
“I think in the second half we showed a good reaction, a good reaction from the team. Even more so when we conceded the goal after 60 minutes. It was good to have an early reply to that goal two minutes later – a great assist by Nemanja Matic and a fantastic finish by Cristiano.
“In the first half we had problems to close down the spaces, we needed a few great saves from David and a few last-second tackles. In the second half, to start with, we pushed back Anthony Elanga almost like a left wing-back and in the last 15 minutes played with a back five with three central defenders. That gave us more control of the game.”
“We were missing eight players in total, so we only had 13 players from the professional team available and bearing that in mind, I thought we showed a good attitude, at least in the second half. We were also physically better and had more shape and more organisation to get more control. It was still far away from controlling and commanding the game, but against a top team like Chelsea, I still think in the second half, I was quite pleased with the performance.”
Rangnick introduced Phil Jones in the second half which was a tactical change for Manchester United side in other to suppress the pressure from the wing.
“We wanted at least a point and still had a chance to score ourselves in the last couple of minutes. I decided to bring on Phil Jones as they were causing us problems on their right side with Reece James and Mason Mount, so it was difficult for Alex Telles to get hold of that.”
