NORWICH, England: Cristiano Ronaldo converted a 75-minute penalty to give Manchester United a barely deserved 1-0 win over Norwich City in the Premier League on Saturday after the visitors struggled to create chances at Carrow Road.
The result lifted United to fifth in the standings with 27 points from 16 games, behind fourth-placed West Ham United on goal difference, while Norwich bottomed out by 10 points.
United’s interim boss Ralf Rangnick was pleased with the result and a solid defensive performance, but admitted they needed to improve in every department.
“We had the game under control from the start, but we didn’t always have the best possible solutions,” Rangnick told the BBC. “It’s a clean slate again, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“In the second half I wasn’t happy at all with the number of corners we gave away, but we got the three points.
“Now we have two clean sheets, which is good, but we still have to improve on that, especially against physical teams or teams that attack high like Norwich did. They didn’t play as a bottom team.”
Ragnick’s counterpart Dean Smith was pleased with Norwich’s fighting spirit and contested referee Darren England’s decision to award United the penalty.
“We just played two of the top six, we dominated at Tottenham but didn’t take our chances and we came up with one of the big guns today and a dubious penalty won it for them,” he said.
United missed a forward guard until Ronaldo drove in the goal after being knocked down by home defender Max Aarons.
Ronaldo saw a shot being knocked off by Tim Krul in the 37th minute and the home keeper also knocked over a header from Harry Maguire just before half-time, after Alex Telles had hit the crossbar early with a deflected free kick.
United fell out in the second half and Norwich looked to break the deadlock as David De Gea blocked a shot from Teemu Pukki from the edge of the area before Ronaldo struck and sent Krul the wrong way.
The home side put more pressure on in the closing stages and De Gea saved United again when he netted a header from Ozan Kabak before Eric Bailly blocked a shot from Billy Gilmour with a last gasp.
United captain Harry Maguire praised De Gea and acknowledged United were not at their best, saying they needed consistency in getting results.
“David De Gea has done a great job today,” the centre-back told Sky Sports. “We are very disappointed with our defensive record this year, we know we need to do better.
“If you play every week, some gigs won’t be at the highest level. You see the top teams do it, they don’t play equally well every week, but they still get the result.”
(Writing by Zoran Milosavljevic; editing by Christian Radnedge and Clare Fallon)
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