Ralf Rangnick will be in charge of Manchester United for the final time this weekend, with his tenure as interim boss ending as it started – with a Premier League game against Crystal Palace.
The German coach has overseen a challenging six months since the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and will take up a consultancy role at the club beyond this season.
A victory over Crystal Palace this weekend would put his side on 61 points – the lowest total for the club since the Premier League was formed in 1992.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Rangnick has now provided an update on his squad status, with some players still not ready to make a return.
“We, once again unfortunately, have quite a few players missing and another couple of players with question marks,” he is quoted as saying by the official Manchester United website.
“We have to wait for tomorrow’s last training session but, as it stands now, there will be quite a few players missing. I’m still positive that we will have a strong starting XI and finish the season on a higher note than we did at Brighton.
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“I’m positive that the players want to get things right and show and prove to everybody that they are capable to play a lot better than we did at Brighton.
“There are a few players definitely missing, please understand that I don’t want to name all those names right now.”
Understandably, the 63-year-old was not keen on revealing too much but a number of players have only just returned to training. Luke Shaw has not played since the March international break but was spotted in training earlier this week, whilst Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford were absent against Brighton in their last game.
“In two days’ training, we had at least one or two players leaving the training session a little earlier because they couldn’t finish the session because they had problems. That was Jadon (Sancho) and Phil Jones, so we need to wait until after the session tomorrow,” Rangnick added.
There is no clarity on Paul Pogba, however. The 29-year-old has not featured for his side since last month’s 4-0 defeat to Liverpool and there is reason to believe that he has played his final game for United.
He is out of contract next month and with no new deal at Old Trafford in sight, he has been strongly linked with moves to Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Real Madrid.
