Manchester United suffered setback on the bench during Leicester draw

Ralf Rangnick revealed Manchester United’s preparations against Leicester were disrupted before and during the draw as substitute Jesse Lingard was sick and unable to come on.

Rangnick had intended to start Cristiano Ronaldo up front but the Portuguese felt unwell on Friday and was ruled out on Saturday morning after he was visited by the club doctor, so Bruno Fernandes started as a ‘false nine’.

Lingard and Juan Mata were United’s remaining attacking options to come on after the introduction of Marcus Rashford but Lingard was discounted altogether as he was vomiting during the 1-1 draw.

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United have only won eight of their 16 Premier League home games this season and have scored 15 times in 13 games under Rangnick’s interim management, leaving them sixth in the table still.

“It’s about not being continuously stable enough and playing on the same kind of level,” Rangnick said. “I’m not a manager looking for excuses, not at all, but it was an unusual situation in the middle of the season, two-and-a-half weeks without a regular game, players on international duty coming back Thursday, jet lag, time difference. Other teams have this but it didn’t help us at all in this moment.

“Missing Cristiano, the fourth striker (United have been without) in the last couple of weeks and months, Jesse Lingard couldn’t come on because he felt sick and was vomiting during the game, we had all the offensive players available on the pitch at the end.

“We played against a good team, they were in good shape, they had won three out of four games, most of their injured players were back.

“This was a fair result, at the end, they deserved to get their point, we deserved to get a point, to win the game we were not continuously for the full game convincing enough.”