Manchester United’s Ralf Rangnick era started win a convincing 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday. The interim manager said he was impressed by the team’s performance, especially because they managed to keep a clean sheet. 

Fred took aim with his weaker right foot and curled a shot from the edge of the area into the far corner in the 77th minute minute. 

“I am very happy with the way the team performed, especially the first half hour, with the pressing, it was exceptional. The only thing missing was the 1-0 or 2-0,” Rangnick told reporters post the game. 

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He seemed impressed with United’s defence that restricted their opponents to two shots on target. 

“The way we defended, we had control of the whole game, the clean sheet was the most important part. These are the things we must improve. We need to keep clean sheets. With just the one training session, I was really impressed. We did much better than expected,” he said.

“We always tried to be on the front foot. We were never not apart from maybe the last five minutes. At all other times we were trying to keep them away from our goal,” he added.

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Rangnick was hired on Monday as manager until the end of the season but had to wait nearly a week before taking charge of his first game while he secured his work permit.

He has already made an imprint on United’s approach, deploying a 4-2-2-2 formation and getting his players to press high and play with more urgency compared to how the team set up under Rangnick’s predecessor, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

United produced a much more aggressive press, in line with Rangnick’s preference, in the opening part of the game and although that faded, it kept Palace away from goal for long periods.

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“We wanted to play with two strikers, especially in the central position. By the way, Cristiano Ronaldo’s work off the ball, ‘chapeau’,” he said.

He  felt he had seen enough positive elements to give him confidence for the future.

“It’s always easier to build on things after you’re successful. We must produce further clean sheets and get better at creating chances for our attack. Overall, I was very pleased with the way we played today,” he said.

With inputs from the Associated Press