Ralf Rangnick was asked after Manchester United’s victory over Tottenham on Saturday whether he thought his team could win the Champions League. It was all he could do not to laugh. After the funeral, in his words, that was the derby defeat at Manchester City the previous weekend, the question did not make sense, according to the interim manager.
Perhaps it is the hope that gets to people. Or the reality that United are a club that only seem to deal in the wildest of extremes. This was the night when it all came crashing back down, United’s flickers of promise ground into the dust by a streetwise and well-drilled Atlético Madrid to leave them with a familiar sinking feeling.
