Ralf Rangnick delighted with Man Utd start
By Tom Gott
Ralf Rangnick has confessed that he has been hugely impressed with the reaction of the Manchester United squad since his arrival.
The interim boss has been in his position for two weeks now and oversaw United's first home clean sheet of the season against Crystal Palace, before seeing out their Champions League group stage campaign with a draw against Young Boys.
"So far, I'm more than happy with their attitude and eagerness to learn and get information that will help them get better not only against [without] the ball but with it," Rangnick told Sky Sports ahead of the meeting with Norwich at the weekend.
"Having only two clean sheets until the Crystal Palace game and having no clean sheets since April at Old Trafford, it was very clear for me where our first focus should be for the first couple of days and weeks.
"If we can produce more clean sheets, if we don't even allow [the opponent] to even shoot on our goal, the more I'm convinced that we will win games because with this group of players we are always capable of creating chances and scoring goals.
"I know them better than I did seven or eight games ago and now it's about continuing to build on what we showed, especially against Crystal Palace. It's a challenging game coming up at Norwich - with a new manager there, they have improved, they're playing with a different style - more direct, more vertical - but if we build on the performance against Palace, I believe we have a good chance to win the game."
Rangnick went on to discuss his favourite moments of his short time in charge of United, recalling two in particular.
"Two things stick out in my memory," he said. "One was the way we prepared the goal [against Palace], not only the way Fred scored it but also the way it was set up over the wing from the right full-back. Mason [Greenwood] then played a perfect ball back into the right foot of Fred. The way we created that was brilliant.
"And defensively, we had a situation in the first half where Victor Lindelof won the first ball and two seconds later, because the ball bounced off into the next lane, he won the ball again, so he had two situations in the middle of the other team's half where, as a full-back, he marked through, played very proactively and won both balls. This is the way we want to play in the future."