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Ralf Rangnick went some way to healing the reported “fracture” between himself and Cristiano Ronaldo on Tuesday night after lauding the veteran striker’s Manchester United display.

Ronaldo was on a run of six games without a goal ahead of United’s home clash with Brighton. It was not quite his worst ever streak, but had he not scored against the Seagulls it would have been. Fortunately the 37-year-old scored just after half-time to put United into the lead.

It was a fine strike from United’s talisman, who was benched recently at Burnley.

He also headed wide at the far post when well placed, but he looked more like his old self at Old Trafford.

It took Ronaldo’s goal tally to 15 and he took to Instagram after their 2-0 victory: “Back on track! Nobody gives up and there’s only one way to get back on track: hard work, team work, serious work. Everything else is just noise. Let’s go Devils!”

Whether or not the “noise” Ronaldo was referring to was the talk coming from Spain or Rangnick remains unclear.

But the German coach hailed the performance of Ronaldo on Tuesday.

“That was an amazing goal. Not only an important one but an amazing goal,” said Rangnick.

“I think overall it was a good performance by Cristiano.

“Energetically, he was on there, he was always trying to help the team-mates so I think in the last weeks definitely the best performance by him and a very, very important goal for us.”

United’s interim boss had been critical of Ronaldo in his Friday press conference.

“It’s not only about Cristiano Ronaldo,” Rangnick said. “He should score more goals, it’s obvious.

“I think we are creating enough chances and enough opportunities in the last couple of games but we just didn’t score enough goals, but this is not only an issue with Cristiano, it’s an issue with the other players, especially the offensive players. We don’t score enough goals.”

As per the Daily Mail, that “reportedly upset the striker,” who led the line against Brighton.

Ronaldo’s six-game scoring drought had begun to see question marks raised over the former Juventus man.

A report by AS in Spain claimed Rangnick did not have the support of senior squad members at United. While Rangnick’s harsh words on Friday had “only increased the striker’s anger with his coach”. 

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Rangnick: United were more aggressive

The outlet even claimed “the fracture between the two is total”. 

But Rangnick will hope the victory, which lifted United back into the top four, will propel United to a strong finish to the season.

“It’s a big win but we still have quite a few games to play,’ interim manager Rangnick said, keen to stress nobody gets ahead of themselves ahead of Sunday’s trip to Leeds.

“After three draws, two of them at home, this was a very important win and even so after the first half today.

“Today for a change we had a better second half than the first half and in the second half it paid off, we were more aggressive.

“We were primed to intercept and attack them in higher positions, so a highly important win for us.”

READ MORE: David de Gea reveals what approach he wanted from Man Utd during tense win over Brighton

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