Manchester United’s interim manager Ralf Rangnick is having a difficult spell with the English giants. The Reds have won only two of their last five Premier League matches and were dumped out of the FA Cup by Middlesbrough.
The manager has said that he is now looking to the team’s sports psychologist Sascha Lense to help the star-studded side over the slump.
“In 11 of 13 games since I arrived we score the first goal and were 1-0 up but we only won half. When you are 1-0 up in three consecutive games concede an equaliser, this affects the mindset of the players,” said Rangnick after the 1-1 draw to Southampton on Saturday.
“I spoke to Sascha and we speak regularly about that. The only thing we can do is speak to the players, one by one, to the group and the whole team.”
Lense worked with the German manager during his time at RB Leipzig. His appointment made him the first sports psychologist for the team in over two decades. Rangnick referred to his appointment as a “logical” move.
“I don’t know what the situation is like here and in other clubs,” said Rangnick last month. “In Germany most clubs have employed sports psychologists or mental coaches—whatever you would like to call them. It is absolutely logical.”
“If you have special coaches for goalkeeping, physical education, even for strikers, fitness, whatever, you should also have an expert for the brain. It’s not so much putting them on the red sofa and holding hands for the players because most of them won’t do that anyway. It is about helping the players: that their brain should assist the body, not work against it. The players and everybody in our team should think in the right way.”
United plays Brighton in the Premier League tonight in a bid to break into the top four.
