Manchester United legend Roy Keane heavily criticised both Ralf Rangnick and Edinson Cavani following the result with Aston Villa.
The German boss oversaw a disappointing 2-2 draw, with his men initially holding a 2-0 lead before capitulating.
Football Daily tweeted part of Keane’s quote, saying: “We saw the weaknesses in United. Cavani was poor, I’m surprised he left him on for the full game.”
🗣 "We saw the weaknesses in United. Cavani was poor, I'm surprised he left him on for the full game."
Roy Keane gives a lot of credit to Aston Villa but says its hard to ignore the problems with Man United pic.twitter.com/348LWWCETM
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) January 15, 2022
With Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcus Rashford, and Anthony Martial all not selected for various reasons, it seemed the obvious choice was to let Cavani lead the line.
Mason Greenwood did start but on the right-wing instead, and it’s easy to make the argument he could have played as a striker with Jadon Sancho playing on the right instead.
Nonetheless, Rangnick had his reasons for starting Cavani as the striker and it wasn’t necessarily a decision fans disagreed with.
However, supporters appeared to be upset with the former RB Leipzig man’s apparent refusal to take the experienced Uruguayan off once it was obvious he wasn’t playing well.
Sancho, Jesse Lingard, and Donny van de Beek all came on but none necessarily made a big impact, with Anthony Elanga, Bruno Fernandes, and Greenwood all coming off.
Some fans have argued that Cavani is more of an impact player and is successful as a substitute rather than a starter.
In fairness, it would protect the former PSG man from picking up knocks, which is important given his injury record.
Rangnick is clearly a fan of Cavani’s and it’s understandable why, but his in-game management will rightly be questioned.