Could be over Tevez, the Tevez that played for us wasn’t really the high scoring version once he moved to City yet. He had an aggression to his game that Rashford doesn’t have though, which complimented that United team well. Chelsea were more remembered than us for their toughness and cynicism but we were no saints on the pitch.
10
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 44
- Goals
- 22
- Assists
- 8
- Yellow cards
- 4
- Status
You are the problem. All you are interested in is defending your position and denigrating one of our best players. You cannot admit you are wrong so want to move the goalposts and claim 'it's nuance bro'.
He is already better than 'very good', very good is Everton level. He is a Manchester United level player ffs.
£300k a week. 'Almost 23' as if that makes him the finished article. I bet you were one of the 'Rashbeck' 'Rashford' pricks weren't you.
Marcus Rashford 22 years old
Premier League 2300 Mins (27 Apps) 15 goals 6 Assists predominantly playing wide left only 'very good'
Premier League 2300 Mins (27 Apps) 15 goals 6 Assists predominantly playing wide left only 'very good'
The goals will come, I'm absolutely sure of that. He's got Ronaldo levels of dedication, and retains that humility that he had when he first came through.
The lad is going to be ridiculous once it all comes together... And even though I say all this, Greenwood is still going to be the clearly better player! We have Rooney+Ronaldo Part II and they'll both, touch wood, be here for their whole careers. Add in Martial and potentially Sancho, and we'll truly be spoilt!
That Tevez then is still the better player though. It has nothing to do with goals. Player for player Tevez comes out on top.
Rashford is still learning his trade right now. We are currently seeing him improve his playmaking abilities. In a 2 years we could always come back and assess whether Rashford has reached that 07/08 level.
It's not that ridiculous if you think about it. I would say Rashford of today is better than Nani of that season who made 26 appearances in PL in that season and scored 3 and assisted 9. Although Rashford would be a bit behind Tevez but latter was also two years older.
Have you ever been to a football match? You come across unreasonably angry and as someone who gets most of their football “knowledge” from playing FIFA
I’d love Rashford to be world class but he won’t be - not in the context that everybody else uses it (i.e. not just being better than Everton)
For the record, that’s not even an unpopular opinion amongst our fanbase and in particular many of the Utd fans who’s opinions I respect
The last FIFA I spent more than a handful of hours on was 98 so great job as usual.
Name the 5 left wingers or inside forwards you would have ahead of him planning for the next 5+ years.
I can name two players in our squad I see as better inside forwards (Mason & Martial) and it looks like a 3rd might be on the way shortly!
From what I can gather from your attitude, if you claim that one of our players isn’t world class you’re somehow not a true fan. I don’t really understand that logic to be honest. I was mainly nice about Rashford and you just went crazy
Greenwood is a better finisher, not a better player at the moment. Having seen both since u18s or earlier I would expect him to be better in the future though, albeit he will spend most of his career as a centre forward.
Martial is not a better inside forward. He is blossoming as a centre forward who can pull wide but doesn't have the understanding of the role that Rashford is demonstrating.
It seems like I was right. You have a superficial way of judging players. It's all about individual skill, rather than skill plus industry, balance, tactical understanding, physical attributes, defensive work, mentality and team play.
Rashford is great in all those areas for that role.
Try listening to pros (not the Redknapps, interviews with random proper players) talking about what they like in players. They think about what wins game after game, not just what impresses fans. Hard yards, clever play and unappreciated off the ball runs.
You'll understand why Rashford is rated highly and its not your bullshit conspiracy about the club trying to trick fans ffs. He's a top player in the making, we are lucky to have him and Greenwood. Martial is doing well as well and can hopefully kick on.
Amazing how if wasn't unlucky with 2 offside goals, half these posts would be silenced.
Am I imagining things or is Rashy becoming a playmaker in this team? He looked like one trick pony with a nose for goal when he broke through, but now he seems so well rounded, close control seems much better, and his passing especially key passes are not being talked about yet they're incredibly good, crosses too, I still remember few of his crosses that Fellaini slotted home, he's always had a good cross in him.
Although Marcus needs to find his scoring mojo again, his selfishness, which now can be seen in Dan James's game these days, has evaporated since the time we had "time to burst Rashy's bubble" threads, and he seems like team player who helps his team in any way he can at any given moment.
Although Marcus needs to find his scoring mojo again, his selfishness, which now can be seen in Dan James's game these days, has evaporated since the time we had "time to burst Rashy's bubble" threads, and he seems like team player who helps his team in any way he can at any given moment.
Rashford shouldn’t be judged on goals when he’s playing on the wing. There’s a lot more to his play than goals.
Steady on, now.
27 goals and assists in 37 appearances for a 22 year old is a very good return. He can only get better.
People here don''t watch football enough sadly and esp. United matches. Cos I don't see how anyone who could've seen his performances and get to the conclusion that he's been average.
But no one said he's average?
Scored 6 penalties. Pretty much 9 goals and 6 assists in 27 apps. Hardly mind-blowing.
He isn't becoming a play maker for the team. They all take turns play making cause none in the front three is naturally one. You'll see Greenwood deeper, next moment you'll see Martial deeper, and next moment Rashford deeper.
His passing has improved though as has his overall game intelligence.
Won 4-5 out of those 6. Now move on.
Everyone wants to sound like some sort of genius with "he will never be xyz" nonsense. Maybe they said Rashford was championship quality back then so it's must be killing them that they are proved wrong.
Look, we will have to agree to disagree. I don’t understand your comment about superficially judging players, I haven’t mentioned a single stat.
In fact, my entire post (the one you didn’t like) was centred around the fact that he can be unplayable at times and he has many attributes but his base technique is not as good as the likes of Pogba, Fernandes, Martial, Greenwood etc...
I don’t know why that upsets you so much. We’re basically arguing about whether Rashford is “just” very good or world class.
I’ll make a friendly prediction and we will come back to it in 2yrs - Rashford will be overtaken by Mason pretty quickly and IF, IF we get Sancho, Marcus will be the one who finds his place in the team under threat....because it won’t be Martial or the bloke we (might) be about to spend big money on...and Greenwood is a proper, world-class generational talent
I have no idea why I go notification for this post.
Just had a look at the person's Rashford posts and it seems you were right
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/marcus-rashford-2018-19-performances.440072/page-113#post-24055592
"Wouldn't get into Championship side on ability as CF". Jesus christ
Another one of the pearlers. The bloke's an avid Mourinho fan too which explains a lot.
Just had a look at the person's Rashford posts and it seems you were right
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/marcus-rashford-2018-19-performances.440072/page-113#post-24055592
"Wouldn't get into Championship side on ability as CF". Jesus christ
Another one of the pearlers. The bloke's an avid Mourinho fan too which explains a lot.
Well my post was spot on then
Still pens (i.e poor play by the opposition), if we got them now he most likely wont take them.
We won 4 penalties, out of which 1 was overturned. Bruno took 2, Rashford took 1 and the one that was over turned, Rashford was about to take it.
If we get them, Rashford and Bruno will both take them.
Regardless, pens are the most cowardly way to score according to Pele, I personally have never counted them when thinking about a players scoring prowess. 9 goals in open play in the league paints the true picture. It's not bad, actually quite good especially cause we've been dire for at least half of the season.
The guy isn't a bad player, he has his strengths and has his limitations. Sooner we recognize that the better because if we do we'll be able to optimize his contribution to the side and that's good for everyone.
He won penalties, which means defenders were not able to cope with him and had to foul him. That shows hid contribution to goals, even if someone takes it from now on.
According to roonster, Pele can feck off.
Pele counts his friendly goals like a twat. He also has no idea how to judge a player, so no wonder your calling him to back up your ridiculous opinions you've spouted in this thread.
Beat me to it!
I don’t think you’ve answered the question I posed to you earlier. There are multiple, world class forwards and wingers over the past 15/20/30 years who weren’t performing to a high class level at the same age of Rashford or even at the age of 23. You can take the list of names I mentioned earlier and the same still applies to most of the list at the age of 23 and even 24.
221 senior appearances are all well and good but you have to factor in the stunted growth of the team during the Mourinho years in which a good portion of those appearances were made.
Again, people aren’t saying that critically analysing our own players is a bad thing, it’s making outlandish statements and predictions with no evidence to support said claims which people rightly have a problem about, such as portions of your original post.
No one has stated that Rashford will become world class, we are just stating that at the age he is (which is 22), he is more than producing the goods compared to other wingers his age in history and present (apart from the obvious wonderkids that I need not list again).
One good game in three? Maybe Rashford of 2 years ago. His base level has risen and he can contributes to creating a goal scoring opportunity in every game. This will most probably improve with age.
A fight for fourth? Players like Sterling, Salah and Mane have been vital cogs in PL winning machines over the past three seasons. Again I ask, Salah and Mane at Rashfords age, even at 24 were nothing more than good wingers nothing more? The level that they are now was a result of natural progression and a high level of coaching that hopefully we can get from Ole, McKenna and Carrick. The same for Sterling who you probably don’t think is world class as he has similar weaknesses to Rashford but has hit 20+ goals in all comps for third season in a row.
When do we expect him to get there? We don’t know. But he has more than enough time to get there. The way you talk about him it’s like he’s in his prime and he has no room for development or growth. It’s objectively wrong.
Martial on the left is not as good as Rashford which has been proven. Greenwood has only started 10 games for us so cannot be judged. Sancho, i'll give you that he is an elite talent. Name four more left inside forwards in the world realistically available that would hold down a place in the side for the long term. I don't think you can.
So what's your point then? Are you saying Rashford is world-class, or will be world-class in the future? My point has been clear all along, I think he can be good/very good but I don't think he can be world class. I really, really don't see how that statement/opinion is in any way outlandish.
I'll address some of the points you make, just for the sake of debate, but you have to answer the above categorically - because otherwise you agree with me if all we're saying is he'll turn out to be good or very good but not world class.
First of all, I don't accept that Jose 'stunted Rashford's growth' - I'd like to see the evidence of that. You can't possibly quantify it. On the subject of naming players who did X....I could name you 50 who would say Mourinho is a superb coach and that they wouldn't be half the player they where now without him. So let's put that 'stunted' argument to one side because it's a total non-starter for me.
Second of all, I also dispute Rashford is a better AML than Martial. On the contrary, I believe Martial is playing CF because he's proven himself to be a far superior CF than Rashford, not because Rashford has proven himself the superior AML. Again, do you dispute this? I don't think you do but you may want to argue differently? Again, it's not really hugely relevant to the 'world-class' debate because Martial isn't world-class either!!
I don't really understand your point about Salah, Mane and Sterling either. Sterling WAS performing at a very high-level from a very young age and the other two followed completely different career trajectories. If Rashford had turned 18 in 2007 would he have played 200+ games for the first team over the next three seasons? Absolutely not. Would that have made him a better or worse player now? Who knows? So all of this is totally circumstantial and subjective.
I believe all three of the players you mentioned (Salah, Mane, Sterling) are now world-class, I would say their records and their trophy cabinets back that up. I think you implied I can't rate Sterling if I don't rate Rashford? Well that's nonsense because as you kindly point out, Sterling's numbers are far superior to Rashford's, despite never having played as a CF (Rashford has at times). Of course, nobody can categorically prove one way or another whether Rashford will get to this level but do you dispute that right now, all three are better than Rashford?
See, this is my whole problem with the 'Rashford WILL BE world-class argument. I asked you when, you said you 'didn't know'. So how long does he get? He isn't world-class now, every pro-Rashford response I have seen accepts that. They all say he WILL be world-class. I'm saying based on all the evidence I see with my own eyes every single game, I don't see where this sudden explosion is coming from in terms of getting him to the level required. So my point is, you guys will never be wrong. Every year fans will come back and critique Marcus and every year you lot will say 'ah but he's still young', 'ah but better numbers than player X at the same age', 'ah but LvG/Jose/Ole stunted his growth', 'ah but he had a bad injury that year', 'ah but he was played out of position that year', 'ah but he was tired from a busy schedule that year' etc....etc...the list goes on. So how can we (let's call us the 'sceptics' ever win this argument? What would you accept as conclusive proof Rashford isn't a world class player?
You could see it with Rooney at 18, you could see it with Ronaldo at 18, you could see it with Mbappe at 18, you can see it with Mason at 18. Again, not all players follow the same trajectory, but I think we're fast approaching the point where if Rashford is going to be world-class, he needs to prove it soon.
And if we're looking at stats, Rashford has eight league goals this season in open play. I'm not interested in an argument about whether penalties 'count'....however, with Fernandes now a regular he won't be taking many next year....so the fact is if he's going to push on to 15/20 goals (which I think we all accept is about right for a world-class AML in a top side) he needs to find another 7-12 goals in open play. He may do that, he may not do that, who knows? But it does mean the penalty debate is at least relevant to this argument, because if Fernandes takes 90% of our pens next year his output in open play HAS to go up.
Now please highlight what I have said that is unfair, speculative or outlandish? It seems like you have to say something nice about Rashford if you imply he's not Maradone MK2, so I'll just add here that, just to remind everybody, HE DOES HAVE SOME VERY GOOD QUALITIES AND SHOULD REMAIN PART OF OUR SQUAD FOR THE LONG-TERM. That OK as a caveat?
Questioning and underrating Rashford should've stopped long time ago but for some reason it still goes on.
If he was stealing the living like Pereira, Lingard, etc. I could understand people being annoyed or whatever, but he's one of our most important players, yet people treat him as one season wonder destined to fail when in reality he gets better with every passing season.
If he was stealing the living like Pereira, Lingard, etc. I could understand people being annoyed or whatever, but he's one of our most important players, yet people treat him as one season wonder destined to fail when in reality he gets better with every passing season.
Considering a lot of those friendlies were against European clubs in premier competition you can understand why he does that. Those goals were still harder to score than a 1 on 1 with a static goalkeeper.
I think in fairness you raise a lot of valid points about his contribution from open play, but you might not be appreciating the evolution of Rashford's all round game this season, especially from October onwards.
Martial is a couple of years older then Rashford I think? And both of them have pretty comparable stats in terms of goals, assists and conversion rates I think. Martial was pretty patchy and inconsistent two seasons ago when he was the same age as Rashford, having good spells here and there before being benched for Sanchez (complete wrong decision by Mourinho btw).
The point I would like to make regarding Rahsford, and the bit that I don't fully agree with you on is the notion that he'll never become world class. I think this season alone, he has elevated his all round game to another level. Forget penalties, free kicks or whatever other statistics for a second. His contribution to the game now when not scoring/assisting has improved tenfold. His passes between the lines to Martial in the box, link up play with Shaw and Bruno on the left, and his decision making is so much better now.
He looks like he's maturing perfectly as a person, player and performer in the team and finally understands the role being asked of him. To watch his progress over the last 7/8 months, and then decide he'll never become world class, just seems strange for me. I mean, he's around the level of Hazard's most prolific seasons in the PL (a penalty taker), would you say that Hazard was never world class?
He seems to be adding the missing pieces to his game bit by bit, and I think when he's entering his prime (still another 4/5 seasons away btw) we'll look back and wonder how we ever doubted him.
Mate, you're seriously trying to argue that penalties are worth less then goals in friendly's?
He does have to improve his scoring record after lockdown. Been happy with his performances though. Touch on point, dribbling fantastic, passing scrumptious. What’s more, his link up with the 4 other attackers has been telepathic.
Let’s hope he puts in a few tonight though. United winning is obviously the only important thing, but it’s better if it’s by a couple goals again and a player who hasn’t been scoring lately breaks his duck.
Let’s hope he puts in a few tonight though. United winning is obviously the only important thing, but it’s better if it’s by a couple goals again and a player who hasn’t been scoring lately breaks his duck.
Nice to find someone who can disagree on some point without getting angry!
Look, I'm not saying Marcus can never become world-class, of course he can. Who is to say next year he doesn't get 25 PL goals? Nobody can predict that. What I am saying I don't think he will quite hit those heights. That is an opinion, it's totally subjective and is a debate on an Internet forum. Many may have a different opinion. What I have said time and time again to other posters is pointing out a player is NOT currently world-class or highlighting weaknesses isn't sacrilege.
What I will say about Rashford is that you are right about the passes between the lines. The one thing you can't ever accuse Rashford of is not trying things. I would prefer that any day to the likes of Mata who don't try things or Pereira/Lingard who do but just can't execute.
I'm genuinely baffled by the aggression of some posters if you suggest he might not be world-class though....how many players WILL be world-class? You're talking very, very few. Also, not all players in the 23 have to be world-class for us to have a fantastic side. I see no reason why Rashford couldn't start 20 games (in rotation with Sancho and Mason) in a side that wins the title one day
The one thing I will stand by (and probably get called all sorts of names for again) - I think Rashford is an AWFUL centre forward. Really, really bad. No striker's instinct whatsoever and as I said in my very first post, I think you take away all the good bits of his game if you ask him to play as a lone CF. Now, again. I don't get why people are so upset about me saying this. If you think back to our worst run this season, we played Rashford at CF due to Martial being injured. Now, of course I'm not saying we played poorly in those games just because Rashford played CF....but it WAS a factor. It was widely acknowledged at the time that he really struggled against some very poor sides. But hey, we learned something, don't play him at CF! That's not a criticism really is it....it's like saying Luke Shaw is a good LB but don't play him RB or Matic is a good DM but don't play him CB! Lest we forget, he was always a winger in the Youth teams!
In our current front line, I do think Rashford is the least likely to get to the WC status. There is one reason, that is consistency. Rashford has developed really well but he does miss alot of chances, be it a poor touch or poor decision making.
He is a quality player, one you want in your team because he can do a bit of everything and on his day is unplayable.
Saying he may not get to world class is no knock to him though, his progress has been amazing and will only get better. We could have a top player in a World class attack.
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