Ronaldo penalty gives Manchester United 1-0 win at Norwich

Norwich, December 12 (BNA): Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty kick in the 75th minute to give Manchester United a deserved 1-0 victory over Norwich City in the Premier League on Saturday after the visiting team struggled to create chances at Carrow Road.

The result raised United to fifth place in the standings with 27 points from 16 games, behind West Ham United, who is fourth in goal difference, while Norwich remained at the bottom of the standings with 10 points, Reuters reported.

Ralf Rangnick, United’s interim president, was pleased with the result and the solid defensive performance, but admitted they needed to improve in every department.

“From the start we controlled the game but we didn’t always have the best possible solutions,” Rangnick told the BBC. “It’s another clean sheet but there is 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, but we got the three points.

“Now we have two clean sheets which is good but we still need to improve that away from the ground, especially against physical teams or teams that attack hard like Norwich. They didn’t play like the bottom side.”

Ragnik’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 players, we dominated Tottenham but we didn’t take our chances and we went toe-to-toe today with one of the big defenders and won it with a questionable penalty,” he said.

United lacked the supremacy until Ronaldo led the penalty kick after home defender Max Aarons brought him down.

Ronaldo saw a shot lost by Tim Kroll in the 37th minute, and the goalkeeper missed a Harry Maguire header at the end of the first half after Alex Telles hit the crossbar with an early skewed free kick.

United flopped in the second half and Norwich looked more likely to break the deadlock as David de Gea cleared Teemu Pukki’s shot off the edge of the box before Ronaldo fired back, sending Kroll in the wrong direction.

The hosts increased the pressure in the latter stages and De Gea United saved again when he headed Ozan Kabak’s header before Eric Bailly collided with a last-minute Billy Gilmore shot.

United captain Harry Maguire praised De Gea and admitted United were not at his best, saying they needed consistency to deliver results.

“David de Gea put in a great performance today,” the centre-back told Sky Sports. “We were very disappointed with our defensive record this year, and we know we need to do better.

“When you play every week, some of the performances are not going to be top quality. You see the big teams do that, they don’t play well every week but they still get the score.”