Ralf Rangnick is happy to see his Manchester United side collect another three points with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Norwich City at Carrow Road on Saturday but knows it could’ve been much different.
Longtime United goalkeeper David De Gea was close to his very best in the win, especially down the stretch, and Rangnick thinks the shutout should’ve counted at least double for the Spaniard.
“The second half was a little bit better but at the end we were lucky to have a clean sheet and there were two or three clean sheets by David de Gea,” Rangnick said of De Gea, who made four of his five saves after halftime. “The second half I was not at all happy with the amount of corners that we gave away, but we got three points.”
[ MORE: Three things we learned from Norwich vs Man United ]
Rangnick’s men have plenty of work to do but still are functioning without World Cup winners Raphael Varane and Paul Pogba, who can singlehandedly change the tempo and control of a match.
So you can imagine how much they can improve United together.
But the Red Devils, now tied for the fourth-most points in the Premier League, still have to work to do if they want to be in good position to succeed in a top0-four push.
“We have conceded the highest amount of goals in the top ten,” Rangnick said. “Now we have two clean sheets which is good but we still need to improve on that away, especially against physical teams or teams that attack high like Norwich did. ... It’s also a question of body language and physicality and this was one of the major issues that we could have done better.”
We can think of a few United players with significant body language issues, several of the highest-profile, and they’ll do well to heed Rangnick’s warning.
