Tim Sherwood believes there wasn’t much difference in Manchester United’s first showing under Ralf Rangnick to the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer days.
United got off to the perfect start under their new interim manager, with Fred’s superb second-half finish securing a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace at Old Trafford.
Despite having to wait until the final 15 minutes for the winner, and suffering a slight scare moments before when Jordan Ayew turned his effort across the face of goal, there was plenty to encourage United fans.
The first-half performance, in particular, was lauded by supporters, while a rare clean sheet represented a fine opening day’s work for Rangnick.
Former Tottenham and Aston Villa boss Sherwood though wasn’t convinced there was too much difference in United’s performance to their showings under either Solskjaer or Michael Carrick.
“I think it’s a work in progress,” Sherwood told the Premier League.
“Did I see much change, was it chalk and cheese to a Solskjaer or a Carrick side? No.
“Did they scrape the win? Yes. Were Palace poor? Absolutely, I don’t think they played well at all and I think Patrick Vieira will be telling us that.
“I think it’s a box ticked because you need to get some confidence, you need to get the crowd on-side.”
Despite Sherwood’s comments, Rangnick was left beaming with his side as his spell in charge gets off to the perfect start, despite only having two days to work with them after Thursday’s win over Arsenal.
"I was positively surprised by the physical state and intensity, the first half hour was amazing," Rangnick said.
"I felt it was extremely high-tempo, high intensity, always on the front foot, the only thing missing in the first half-hour was not scoring one, two or three goals.
"But for me it was clear you cannot play the whole game, 90 minutes, at this level of intensity. But even after that we had control of the game. Second-half, we started again well and, in the end, we deserved to win.”
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