Every word from Ralf Rangnick press conference ahead of Brighton game 6 May 2022

You mentioned there it looked like the players were having fun, fun is not a word that has been used a lot around Manchester United this season, do you get the impression that there is a group there who do want to succeed, that do want to improve this situation?
“Well, I think it was visible against Brentford, I think this was not only my subjective opinion, I think you could see they enjoyed themselves on the pitch. This does not mean everything was perfect, but we were controlling the game and with regard to next season, there will be some changes quite obviously because there are quite a few players whose contracts are expiring and I think we spoke about that earlier on with the right, new players to join us here, plus the players who are already here and have longer-term contracts. It’s also something that needs to be discussed with Erik and the board, to tell the board with which players he wants to work but I’m positive that with the right new players to add to ours already here, the pathway could be into a very positive one and this is what we will all try to achieve.”

You talked about some of the players who are out of contract at the end of the season, one of those is Jesse Lingard, who didn’t feature on Monday night. His brother said this week that it was classless not to give him one final game at Old Trafford, I wonder what your reaction was to that and also why he hasn’t featured almost at all this year, only four starts across all competitions?
“To start with, I think in the last couple of weeks under my tenure, he has played far more games than he used to before I came. That’s to start with. Number two, on gameday against Chelsea, he contacted me in the hotel and asked me to release him from the game and release him from the training session the following day or two days after the Chelsea game for some personal, family reasons and I also allowed him to do that. This was also the reason that with only three subs, still unfortunately, in all the other leagues you have five subs, I had to take a decision between bringing on Edinson Cavani or Jesse Lingard or the young Alejandro Garnacho who I would have also loved to bring on and give a chance having been 3-0 up but I took the decision to bring on Edinson for the very reasons I explained to you. Had I not brought on Edinson Cavani, maybe someone else would have posted: ‘it was classless not to bring on Edinson Cavani’ or maybe someone else would have posted: ‘why didn’t the manager bring on the young Alejandro Garnacho?’ With only three subs and two already done, or the first one had already been done, you have to take a decision. This will not be to the liking of everybody, it’s also part of the game.”