The young English forward was at the end of a few bright moments in attack as the Reds were 0-0 with the visiting team during his substitution.
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Interim manager Ralf Rangnick has addressed Mason Greenwood‘s substitution during the second half of Manchester United’s defeat against Wolves. The young English forward was at the end of a few bright moments in attack as the Reds were 0-0 with the visiting team at that point. However, Wolves eventually went on to win the Premier League game with a late strike from Joao Moutinho. United had a disappointing first half, but Greenwood produced some clever touches and showed confidence with the ball at his feet. But, he was the one to make way for Bruno Fernandes at the start of the second period for Manchester United. Marcus Rashford and Anthony Elanga also came from the bench and replaced Jadon Sancho and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Rangnick informed that the replacement choice for Fernandes was a toss-up between Greenwood and Edinson Cavani, who scored the equaliser against Newcastle United recently. “The question was shall I take off Mason or shall I take off Edi,” said Rangnick, according to their club’s website. “We decided to keep Edi as the most offensive, the more ‘striker’ of the two of them and take off Mason.
“It was my call,” he asserted. “We could have done it in another way but we chose Mason. We know how the fans like Mason but, until then his effort, and performance was not outstanding but at least he was one of the better players.”
In a separate interview with Sky Sports, Rangnick further explained the reason behind the change. He added: “It was 0-0 and we had our better moments in that part of the game, so we decided to bring on Bruno. He had a big chance to put us 1-0 ahead.”
“Mason was good but I had to take somebody off and I didn’t want to take one of the no.6s off [Scott McTominay or Nemanja Matic] so the question was should I take off Edi or Mason, and I decided to take off Mason.”
During his post-match interviews, Rangnick also explained the change in formation during the second half. “We didn’t play well at all, neither individually nor collectively. In the first half, we had big problems to keep them away from our box and from our goal. In the second half, we changed to a different formation, with a back three, and we had more control on the game. The game showed that we have a lot of work to do, especially against the ball. We had too many unforced errors and we have to get better. This is an issue of the whole team,” he added.
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