Ralf Rangnick wants all Manchester United’s players to be fully vaccinated after a Covid-19 outbreak disrupted their season.
United’s last two games against Brentford and Brighton were postponed – with Rangnick having less than 10 fit players available for both fixtures – and first-team operations at the club’s Carrington training ground have been closed down twice.
However, Rangnick confirmed that 25 outfield players trained on Thursday as United got back to normal ahead of Monday’s game at Newcastle, with Paul Pogba the only absentee as he recovers from a thigh injury.
United’s interim boss insists clubs must encourage their players to be fully vaccinated and behave responsibly to stay on top of the Omicron variant after the Premier League announced this week that 16 per cent of top-flight players have not been jabbed at all.
He said: ‘The Premier League will try everything to keep the league safe and the situation around the players safe.
‘We have to encourage players to behave in a disciplined way with regard to contact. We have to make sure we keep most of the players vaccinated.
‘As far as I know, we have a high record of vaccinated players at our club, but the past few weeks show that even if you are vaccinated two or three times you can catch the virus, especially the new virus.
‘But you are protected from severe symptoms and most of our players who tested positive at least had very very weak symptoms and didn’t suffer.
‘As you know, we had the last training session on Thursday. We had eight fewer players and three goalkeepers, then we closed the training ground for four days in order to break the chain.
‘Today was the third day of training this week. We trained on Tuesday, yesterday and today and we have 25 outfield players apart from Paul Pogba. He’s the only one missing out.
‘Everyone else is on board. The development of the last week is extremely positive.
‘We will train tomorrow and there will be a day off on Christmas Day and then we have the last training session on Sunday and fly to Newcastle Sunday evening.’
