Is there a place for Rashford as a regular starter?

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Jacob

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While Greenwood, Sancho, Pogba, Bruno and Cavani are fit and at their best, where does that leave Rashford when he's back?

If we replace Cavani with Haaland next summer, the situation looks even worse. I'm assuming Pogba stays.

Is there a place for Rashford as a mainstay in our strongest XI?
 
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Dante

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Yes.

I think in 75% of games, he's a better option than Pogba on the left when we need penetration and directness. Against teams with more space between the lines like today, Pogba's the man. I'd make a similar argument for the choice between Cavani and Greenwood.

It's a nice headache for the manager to have. Even Fergie had a clear first choice for the last few years of his reign. We've probably not had such strong competing options since the late 2010s.
 
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sp_107

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Shut up man, no need for this thread. Rashford is class he will get his place once he is back
 

darioterios

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Yes x



There are 60 games in a season to fit them all around, with plenty opponents where his explosiveness will terrorise their defenses.
 

Jacob

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Shut up man, no need for this thread. Rashford is class he will get his place once he is back
No need for that. Behave.

It's not as easy as you make it sound. There's only three positions he's competing for. Who would be bench?
 

villain

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We gotta get over this fascination over being a regular. Look at the depth that City have.

Between Rashford, Greenwood, Martial, Cavani, Pogba & Sancho all will have 35-50 appearances whether they're starting or coming on as sub.
 

Deery

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Wouldn’t worry about Rashford he’d probably be glad of the rest and will start many games.
 

cyberman

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Nope. The proven, season long consistency of Paul Pogba will keep him out
 

Chief123

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While Greenwood, Sancho, Pogba, Bruno and Cavani are fit and at their best, where does that leave Rashford when he's back?

I would never want to lose him but if we replace Cavani with Haaland next summer, the situation looks even worse. I'm assuming Pogba stays obviously.

Would he be satisfied with a part-time role?
Don’t get too excited so easily. Pogba on the left wing is not a first option solution. Will work at times but not a primary plan.
 

Jacob

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Yes.

I think in 75% of games, he's a better option than Pogba on the left when we need penetration and directness. Against teams with more space between the lines like today, Pogba's the man.
If we're going to put Pogba further down we're going to have to have a proper DM next to him. Allegedly, he doesn't want to sit deep?
 

Steven-UK

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Yes he'll be a starter on a regular basis!
Shut up man, no need for this thread. Rashford is class he will get his place once he is back
Manchester United's premiership ambition problems highlighted right there, above...

It was great watching United against Leeds today without consistent sitters being missed, and basic poor decision-making being administered...
 

bosnian_red

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He's a brilliant left winger when fit and provides a different threat. He'll be fine. I'd suspect this to be our starting 11 with all fit this year, with the striker being varied.
Striker
Rashford Bruno Sancho
Fred Pogba​

Or up top if Pogba is left. You need depth, and right now we have Martial and Greenwood to provide competition to the front 3 with Cavani probably the starter. But then again, it's a busy season and we have injuries already so who knows how it'll play out.
 
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I don't think we'll have any guaranteed starters - which is a good thing.

People have been underestimating Greenwood for a while. He's not just giving up that right forward spot to Sancho without a fight...he's already arguably our best forward in terms of interplay, technique and intelligence and he's improving by the month.

Ditto Pogba. He was fantastic floating around from the left last season...finished with a couple of below par performances and suddenly everyone wrote him off as far as that position goes, saying he needs to play centrally or not at all. You saw today how much we can get out of him from that wide playmaker position.

We have Greenwod, Pogba, Rashford and Sancho for 2 positions - and that's before you even get started on players like Amad, Elanga, James etc.

Luckily there's a lot of minutes to go around.
 

Bebestation

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That Pogba miss would have been a Rashford goal.
 

roonster09

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Players should fight for their position, we won't see same performance from our attackers in all games.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Yes he's excellent. Let's just appreciate the different qualities different quality players bring. Pogba has creativity. Sancho has intricate play. Rahsford is explosive.
 

VanDeBank

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Oh my! What will we do when we have 6 class players for 4 positions :rolleyes:

How about we select on form and tactics and give appropriate rest to players with our busy schedule?

Also Pogba can play a fair number of games in CM and there's always an injury (like right now). No problems whatsoever.
 

Jacob

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Yes he's excellent. Let's just appreciate the different qualities different quality players bring. Pogba has creativity. Sancho has intricate play. Rahsford is explosive.
No doubt they all have something unique to offer, that only speaks in favour for rotation - which leads us to the topic of the thread. Rashford will have to fight his way back into our 'best XI'.
 

Pexbo

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Of course there is. A manager doesn’t pick his best 11 at the start of the season and stick with that. It’s a mixture of horses for courses, form and fitness. When Rashford is back fit he will probably play 75%+ of our matches.
 

amolbhatia50k

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No doubt they all have something unique to offer, that only speaks in favour for rotation - which leads us to the topic of the thread. Rashford will have to fight his way back into our 'best XI'.
Won't they all? You add Pogba and Sancho to the wide options then everyone will have to perform to start. But if someone grabs the place and makes it impossible to displace him then it's only good for us.
 

Jacob

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This fecking place :houllier:
This doesn't help the situation one bit. Trying to have a civil conversation on where Rashford fits in when he's back. There no bashing or criticising here, if anything it's praise for our abundance of attacking quality.
 

Borys

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He doesn't have a guaranteed spot that's for sure (with Pogba being now full-time LW/AM and Sancho joining).

I don't think his future lies on the wings anyway.
 

Leonzo1

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While Greenwood, Sancho, Pogba, Bruno and Cavani are fit and at their best, where does that leave Rashford when he's back?

I would never want to lose him but if we replace Cavani with Haaland next summer, the situation looks even worse. I'm assuming Pogba stays obviously.

Would he be satisfied with a part-time role?
Putting next season and the whole Haaland thing aside, yes he does. Cavani, Greenwood, Pogba, Bruno, Sancho, Martial, Rashford. 7 fantastic options for 4-5 positions per game is great to have.

My guess the minutes allocation this season will be something like this:

Bruno 90%
Sancho 75%
Greenwood 70%
Pogba 70%
Rashford 60%
Cavani 40%
Martial 30%

Those 7 will get minutes. Mata, Lingard and James will barely see the pitch though.
 

RedRob

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We had 60-odd games last season. If we're serious about competing on four fronts, then we can't have a drop in quality from Pogba to James on the left wing. That's not calling Rashford a squad player, that's saying it's important to not have a predictable first XI.

Added to which, last season we had too many passengers in attacking positions. Martial had a poor season, Pogba was intermittent, Cavani had a poor first half, Greenwood didn't reach previous heights, even Rashford himself had to play through a long-standing pain barrier. It's incredibly rare to have a situation when all the attacking players are fit and at their best, and another top class attacker like Rashford mitigates against that.
 

Jacob

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Won't they all? You add Pogba and Sancho to the wide options then everyone will have to perform to start. But if someone grabs the place and makes it impossible to displace him then it's only good for us.
Not historically, no. Rashford was an automatic starter even when he was at his worst (due to injury and lack of options). That's not the case when he's back though.
 

flappyjay

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We gotta get over this fascination over being a regular. Look at the depth that City have.

Between Rashford, Greenwood, Martial, Cavani, Pogba & Sancho all will have 35-50 appearances whether they're starting or coming on as sub.
Didn't get any of the city players into my fantasy league team for that reason. Besides maybe 5 players the rest you never know who will play.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Dan James is getting minutes for us. Rashford will play his share and then some.

And even in the worst case scenario, I’d rather have a few players grumbling about lack of minutes rather than going into crunch fixtures having to play players out of position. Competition and depth are good things.
 

Red_toad

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Manchester United's premiership ambition problems highlighted right there, above...

It was great watching United against Leeds today without consistent sitters being missed, and basic poor decision-making being administered...
Typical newbie poster. Lad is second top scorer in the last 2 seasons, and 3rd the season before. Carry on ignoring how effective he is and just focus on the chances he doesn't take.
 

Rightnr

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I personally don't rate his technical ability but if he's back to his best, he causes so many problems for defences. However, against low blocks, I think we should play Sancho, Greenwood and Cavani/Martial.

Rashford cannot and should not play every game if he's to play into his 30s.

That Pogba miss would have been a Rashford goal.
This is just embarassing. Rashford has his fair share of sitters he misses, actually he scores the harder ones.

But beyond that, Rashford is a different player to Pogba but Pogba is miles ahead overall and the 4 assits show it.

And then people talk about agendas when stuff like this is posted when he equals the PL record for assists in a single game.
 

Bebestation

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For me once Martial and James have been sold - Rashford has plenty of space to fight for his spot both as a started and on the bench.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Not historically, no. Rashford was an automatic starter even when he was at his worst (due to injury and lack of options). That's not the case when he's back though.
He will play loads.
 

Dr. Dwayne

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This doesn't help the situation one bit. Trying to have a civil conversation on where Rashford fits in when he's back. There no bashing or criticising here, if anything it's praise for our abundance of attacking quality.
No, it's a ridiculous postulation. We've played one match and Rashford will be out for a while. Players go off form, get injured, etc and we play plenty of games each season. There's enough to go around and the benefit now that we have a wealth of attacking players is that no one will get run into the ground out of sheer necessity.
 

crossy1686

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Manchester United's premiership ambition problems highlighted right there, above...

It was great watching United against Leeds today without consistent sitters being missed, and basic poor decision-making being administered...
Someone who started watching United recently...
 
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