Manchester United interim manager Ralf Rangnick felt his side were left to rue missed chances, as Middlesbrough defeated the Reds 8-7 on penalties at Old Trafford.
Despite controlling the first half and going into the break ahead, thanks to a goal from the returning Jadon Sancho, Rangnick’s side were unable to add to their lead.
The visitors exploited this, and levelled proceedings in the second half, before ultimately proceeding to victory on penalties.
While he felt his side were left to regret not capitalising on their early pressure, Rangnick believes we were on the receiving end of an incorrect decision to allow the equaliser to stand as Duncan Watmore handled the ball in the build-up to Matt Crooks’s equaliser.
We’re really disappointed. The players, the staff, everybody. We should have killed the game off in the first half. We could easily have been 3-0 or 4-0 up. We started well and played extremely well in the whole first half. Our movement and tempo of the game were exactly what we intended to do. But it was only 1-0 and a goal like this can always happen, although it shouldn’t have happened, from our perspective, because we didn’t defend well, we were too open in that counter-attacking situation.
You could see that they [the players] supported him and everybody supported him. This has happened to more experienced players than him. It’s a big shame for him but also for the whole club, for the supporters, for the team, because we did well in the last couple of weeks. We trained well, we played well in the first half especially and we are, therefore, very disappointed at the moment.”
INJURY UPDATE