Blank slate Anthony Elanga saves Manchester United side in need of Ralf Rangnick brain training

Much of the initial reaction and debate around Ralf Rangnick’s appointment centred around one question: whether Manchester United could meet the physical demands of his style.

To press and counter-press when you do not have the ball requires a certain level of fitness, so too does playing a high tempo, direct attacking style when in possession of the ball. It is not just down to physicality, though, as the new interim manager spelled out on the morning of his unveiling.

“It’s train the brain,” Rangnick said. “Modern football in the last 10 years has completely changed into a more physical, more athletic, more vertical, more high-speed ball game. If you watch games in the early 2000s and compare it with now, you wouldn’t believe it’s the same ball game. It has completely changed and in order to develop teams, you need not only to train the bodies but also the brains."

This was United’s first appearance in the Champions League knock-out stages - the pinnacle of the modern game - for the best part of three years. It is the stage on which a club of their size and stature belongs, one they seek to return to a regular, competitive presence. For much of the evening against Atletico Madrid at the Wanda Metropolitano, this was a type of uninspired, thought-free and borderline brainless performance rarely seen served up by an elite club at this rarefied level.

And yet, as the night threatened to peter out into more familiar disappointment and recriminations, it was salvaged by the player who has responded better to Rangnick’s methods than any other on the training pitches of Carrington.

Anthony Elanga was little more than a hopeful prospect under predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: a Jimmy Murphy Player of the Year in the academy,