Rangnick turns to sports psychologist to end Manchester United’s drawing habit

Ralf Rangnick has turned to his sports psychologist Sascha Lense to try and rebuild Manchester United’s confidence and end their habits of losing leads.

United have drawn 1-1 in each of their last three games, all after scoring first and having an advantage at the break, resulting in the loss of four points and their elimination from the FA Cup. In Rangnick’s brief reign, they have already drawn five times after being ahead and the interim manager accepted their belief has suffered.

He brought in Lense, who had worked with him at RB Leipzig, to address the mental side of the game and has turned to an old ally to address his players, both individually and as a squad, in an attempt to make United more resilient.

Rangnick said: “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. They say: ‘We should have been 3-0 or 4-0 up and all of a sudden it is 1-1.’ If we concede early in the second half, it affects the confidence of the players. They are human beings, not robots. 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.

“Number one, we have to be more effective to score a second and a third goal and just kill a game off. But if that doesn’t happen, stick to the gameplan, stay solid, stay tactically disciplined. I look to all those goals we conceded in the second halves and it was just too easy.”

United face Brighton in the Premier League on Tuesday night.