Rangnick admits he's not happy with Man Utd start

Manchester United struggled to a draw at Newcastle on Monday night, and now interim boss Ralf Rangnick has admitted he is far from happy with his start as manager.

Rangnick is unbeaten in his first four games since replacing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the Old Trafford hot seat but needed an Edison Cavani equaliser to salvage a point at St James Park.

And he admits the recent disruption caused by a Covid-19 outbreak within his squad hindered his teams chances against the Magpies.

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What did Rangnick say?

Asked if had achieved as much as he had wanted in his first few weeks, Rangnick said: "Of course not.

"Every coach, 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.

"But in order to do that, you need to be able to train.

"As you know, we had to close Carrington for four days. Before that we had eight or nine outfield players in training, so directly after the Norwich game, and they only came back in small bits and pieces.

"The last three days we were almost back to full strength with regard to the size of the squad, but we couldn't do that much in training.

"On the other hand, in those two-three training sessions, the team looked good and therefore it was really a bit of a, in Monday's game, negative surprise, the way that we played with regard to game speed, game tempo and physicality."

Rangnick on Varane and Maguire

United's central defensive partnership of Harry Maguire and Raphael Varane came in for particular criticism after the match but the German manager defended the pair. He said: "Rafa hasn't played for the last five or six weeks and even before the Tottenham game, he was injured, so in total in 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 OK. I wouldn't say that he was outstanding and the same with Harry, but they did OK.

"Our problem was again that we allowed too many transitional moments and this is not only a problem of the centre-backs, it's a problem of the whole team."

United are back in action on Thursday night with a home match against Burnley.

And Rangnick will be hoping for a much better performance to get his team back into the race for the top four and a Champions League spot.