Rangnick's reaction to win at Brentford

The Reds stood firm and weathered the storm of a difficult first half of Wednesday’s Premier League trip to the Brentford Community Stadium, with David De Gea deserving full credit for his contribution to the scoreline being 0-0 at that point. 

But United’s intent to produce a reaction after the interval was on display imminently and would tee-up a brilliant second-half performance that featured goals from Anthony Elanga, Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford, as we secured all three points under the lights in the capital.

Ivan Toney did get a consolation back for the hosts late on, but that didn't put a dampener on an impressive showing from the Reds, to Rangnick’s delight. 

The German spoke about why United were better in the second half during his post-match media duties, as well as praising several Reds and giving an insight into his conversation with Cristiano Ronaldo after our no.7’s substitution.

Scroll down to read all of the key quotes from the interviews done by the boss at full-time…

A PERFORMANCE OF TWO HALVES
“I wouldn’t say [we had] a strong conversation [at half-time[ but obviously we had to change a few things and the first half we were not good in almost all aspects of the game - sloppy passing, not strong enough in the 50/50 situations, and we gave away almost every second ball. In the second half, we were more urgent, we were attacking them higher up the pitch, we were taking the right positions when we were on the counterattack, and we scored. This was the big difference.”

BRENTFORD POSED A STRONG CHALLENGE
“The way that they played, they were extremely aggressive, extremely proactive and brave, with a lot of physicality. We knew that from the start, of course we saw them play other games at home, it’s not a coincidence they beat teams like Arsenal and dominated them. We were fully aware of this, but in the first half we were second best in all aspects. In the second half, we had counterattacking situations ourselves and we knew we could make their back three drop back and bring them into one-on-one sprinting duels. We knew that we would be better in those areas of the pitch.”

DE GEA MADE KEY STOPS
“He has been doing that for the past few weeks, brilliant saves in the first half, one of the best goalkeepers in the world right now I would say.”

MCTOMINAY’S INFLUENCE 
“In the second half, Scott, I must say once again, was a real leader. He played with authority and when we needed it most. I think that had almost a positively contagious effect on all the other players in the centre of the pitch.”

GOALS FROM THREE ACADEMY GRADUATES 
“I am happy for our young players, we had three young goalscorers today, but I also must say we were well prepared by Bruno, a brilliant set up by Bruno.”

ELANGA’S EVENING 
“He followed up on the performance he showed at Villa Park, even there I thought he was really good. Today, I would say he was almost outstanding in the second half, a lot of work against the ball and scoring the important first goal.”

WHAT RONALDO SAID AFTER SUBSTITUTION
“The only reaction out of it was that he was asking me, ‘why me? why do you take me off’ and I said, ‘listen, I have to take the decision in the interest of the team’ and we had exactly the same situation five days ago at Villa Park, 2-0 up with 15 minutes to play, and of course we didn’t want to make the same mistake again. I decided to switch to a back five with Harry Maguire and bring on Marcus [Rashford] as another fast winger on the right-hand side and I think it was the right decision. Cristiano was not happy, he’s a goalscorer, he would have wished to stay on and score, but it was more important for us to be compact, to have enough legs and [make] strong headers to defend their set pieces. When we scored the third goal, I said exactly that to him. I understand you want to score yourself, but maybe in a couple of years when you’re a head coach yourself, you’ll take the same decision.”