10 February,2022 07:13 AM IST | Burnley | AFP
Man Utd’s Bruno Fernandes (left) and Edinson Cavani during their EPL tie against Burnley. Pic/Getty Images
Ralf Rangnick blamed lack of aggression for Manchester United's failure to beat bottom-of-the-table Burnley as a 1-1 draw at Turf Moor saw the Red Devils fall out of the Premier League's Top 4. With Cristiano Ronaldo left on the bench, United were made to pay for not making more of a dominant first 45 minutes after Paul Pogba put them in front.
Burnley roared back after the break and gave their survival hopes a boost when Jay Rodriguez levelled two minutes into the second half. West Ham's 1-0 win over Watford sees the Hammers leapfrog United into the final slot to qualify for next season's Champions League, while Arsenal and Tottenham remain within striking distance with games in hand.
"Again it's a frustrating night for us because we should have won easily," said Rangnick. "The first 15-20 minutes of the second half we were just not aggressive enough. One point from a performance like this is just not enough." United's troubled season hit another bump in the road when they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Middlesbrough on penalties on Friday.
The lessons from that defeat were not learned as again Rangnick's men had more than enough chances to kill the game as a contest before half-time before being punished for a slack piece of defending.
For the first time the German left a fit Ronaldo out of his starting line-up for a league match after he played the full 120 minutes on Friday. However, United's first half performance will add more fuel to the debate on whether they function better as a unit without the five-time Ballon d'Or winner.
The visitors had the ball in the net three times and missed a number of guilt-edged chances, but only had one goal to show for their dominance by half-time. Raphael Varane thought he had scored his first United goal when he leapt to power home Bruno Fernandes' free-kick on 15 minutes. But after a VAR review, the goal was disallowed.
"We scored three goals," Rangnick said. "The second [disallowed goal] the linesman flagged foul but he flagged it 10 seconds after that incident. This was a very soft decision," he added.
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