Anthony Elanga Reveals One Reason Behind Improvement At Manchester United

Anthony Elanga believes that the training given to him during pre-season last year helped him improve his game, after an encouraging breakthrough season.

The Swedish winger who has impressed this season at Old Trafford spoke to the Manchester United website and was keen to praise the work of the coaching staff, who he feels helped develop his game massively.

“We worked a lot on jumping and other aspects of my game,” he said. “I feel like last pre-season, you could see the that I’ve been working on those areas, it’s all about keeping on improving, getting better.

Elanga showed his ability with his head and his jumping reach with a fantastic header for first goal for the club against Wolves. The tricky winger says the work put in on the training ground has helped him massively.

“In the youth team I wasn’t really jumping and scoring many headers. I think now I’ve scored more headers for the first team than I did in the youth team.

Anthony Elanga scored his first Manchester United goal against Wolves with a header. (Alamy)

“It was something I worked on a lot last summer. I went away for a bit, working with one of my personal coaches, Tom (Joyce) and he helped me a lot.” He added.

The Swede who was promoted to the first team by former boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, featuring in two Premier League games in 2020/2021 towards the end of a hectic season. 

After his fantastic header against Wolves on the final day of that season, the winger has shown promise and has kept out stars like Marcus Rashford, cementing his place in the first team.

With 21 appearances in the Premier League last season, Elanga has shown his reliability and his work ethic during those games and with two goals and two assists he showed glimpses of his eye for goal in his first full season of professional football.

Alamy

Elanga, who has shown he has the mentality and ability to be able to break into the Manchester United fold, feels that the dedication and the effort he has put in has helped him come this far.

“I think it (work off the pitch) shows my dedication and my mentality as well,” he insisted. “I’ve been through a lot of things, even earlier on in the season as well, but I’ve not let it affect me. I’ll keep pushing and working hard.”

The 21-year-old was also keen to heap praise onto incoming boss Erik ten Hag and his excitement over the prospect of working with him.

“He’s a fantastic manager and you can see his record in Europe and I’m really looking forward to working with him,” Elanga enthused.

Elanga will be hoping that he can show off his ability to Ten Hag and show he can be a crucial part of the setup, going into a pivotal season at Old Trafford.