Every word from Ralf's press conference

With the festive fixture schedule leaving little time for full press conferences, the manager actually fielded questions on our upcoming match against Burnley in the aftermath of Monday’s 1-1 draw at Newcastle United.

Read every word from Rangnick’s press conference below…

Hi Ralf, I understand it’s been a difficult time with the postponements, but do you think you’ve made as much progress as you would like to have done, having been in the job for three or four weeks now?
“Of course not. Every ambitious coach, and there’s no difference between other coaches and myself in that area, wants to take faster steps and larger steps forward. In order to do that, you need to be able to train and, as you know, we had to close Carrington for four days, and before that, we had eight or nine outfield players training. So directly after the Norwich game, they only came back in small bits and pieces, so the last three days we were almost back to full strength with regards to the size of the squad, but we couldn’t do that much in training. On the other hand, in those two or three training sessions, the team looked good and so therefore in today’s game [Newcastle on Monday] it was a negative surprise the way that we played with regards to game speed, game tempo and physicality.”

Raphael Varane and Harry Maguire came in for a lot of criticism in the match, and, as you said, you’re up against a physical Burnley team next. Are you confident they can stand up to that physical pressure? And do you think this is a partnership that will work?
“Rapha hasn’t played for five or six weeks and even before the Tottenham game he was injured, so in total over the last three months, he hasn’t played that many games. Yes, he made a mistake before the first goal that we conceded, but apart from that I think he was okay. I wouldn’t say he was outstanding, and the same with Harry, but they did okay. Our problem again was that we allowed them too many transitional moments and this is not only a problem of the centre-backs, it’s a problem of the whole team and it starts up front. You can speak also about the role of the No.10s in that kind of formation. I don’t think it makes sense to speak about the individual performance of players, we need to get better as a team.”

It’s the first time you’ve been able to pick Cavani. Do you think he’s able to be fit for the duration of the season and can he have a good partnership with Ronaldo? Would you start those two up front from the start of a game?
“Actually over the last few days, I was also considering playing him from the start. I spoke with him yesterday and the day before yesterday and he didn’t feel comfortable to play from the beginning because he didn’t know how fit he was but today after being 1-0 down at half-time, it was clear to me that we needed to take more risks, to change something and that’s why we decided to bring on him and Jadon [Sancho] at half-time.”

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