Lense, 46, a former second division player in Germany, worked with Rangnick for three years at RB Leipzig. Rangnick, who hopes Lense and Armas will have their work permits approved in the next 48 hours, said it was a no-brainer to employ a sports psychologist and said the new man would take a very hands on role.

“For me, it is absolutely logical,” he said. “I even had somebody like this, Hans-Dieter Hermann, the current sports psychologist of the German national team – back in 1998 in Ulm.

“If you have specialist coaches for goalkeeping, for physical education, even for strikers, for whatever, for fitness, you also should have an expert for the brain.

“Not so much to put them on the sofa and for holding hands with the players because most of them would not do that anyway. For me, it’s about helping the players that the brain should assist the body and not work against it.

“That is what it’s about – that the players and even the coaching staff, everybody in our team, should think in the right way. Whenever we speak about football we all know that the major part is up here – what do you think, how do you analyse the situation?

“Therefore, I’m very happy to have Sascha on board. He’s hands on, he’s not caught up too much working on the theory. He’s hands on and part of every training session. I know we could benefit a lot from him. For me, it’s vital on the top level that we should have the best possible person for this job.”

United’s clean sheet against Palace was their first at Old Trafford since April and Rangnick said it remained a priority to “fine tune our collective defending”.

“Six months, no clean sheet in your own stadium – for me, it was clear where our priorities should be and how we should develop the team in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

“It showed how the team could defend if they were together and obviously there is still space for improvement. We can still improve in possession of the ball, we can create more chances, be more flexible on the ball, play more logically on the ball.”

Henderson, who has made just one appearance this season, and Van de Beek will be given a chance to impress against Young Boys. Henderson, whom Rangnick described as a “very good, ambitious goalkeeper”, is determined to win over the new manager but he has little interest in playing second fiddle to David de Gea for the remainder of the campaign if his fortunes do not change.

Edwin van der Sar, the Ajax chief executive and former United No 1, is an admirer of Henderson. The Dutch club could test Rangnick’s resolve in the transfer window next month as they look for a solution to their goalkeeping problems.

Meanwhile, Rangnick said he hoped defender Raphael Varane and striker Edinson Cavani would resume full training next week following injuries.