The treatment on here of Marcus Rashford

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He deserves respect.

He can be frustrating to watch at times, but it's only because we all know how talented he is. However, his numbers (goals + assists) speak for itself. And to play through injury like he does is admirable, even though I vehemently disagree with our coaching staff for making him do it.

He's an exceptional player, and we should feel proud as Manchester United fans to have him on our team.
Why do you believe the coaching staff are making him play with injuries?

I doubt that is the case.
 

simplyared

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I like you Simply but I can’t agree. Rashy has been playing like that for way too long now and I can’t shake the feeling our other forwards would be scoring and assisting a lot more if Rashford wasn’t losing the ball every time he gets it. I think his playing on the left but then actually being our striker unbalances us. If we want to get to the next level we need a #9 and one of Greenwood and Rashford dropped for a more creative player or else move Mason in and buy a creative.
I added some more to my previous post which you probably didn't read. After reading your answer I disagree with you even more. You use the wrong word: he needs to be rested because of injury and exhaustion not dropped. Wanting him sold for a more creative player? You must be winding me up?
 

Ali Dia

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I added some more to my previous post which you probably didn't read. After reading your answer I disagree with you even more. You use the wrong word: he needs to be rested because of injury and exhaustion not dropped. Wanting him sold for a more creative player? You must be winding me up?
i didn’t say that. I said one of him or Greenwood should be dropped for at least one winger whose natural instinct is to stretch play, press, cross and assist. I’d be happy with Mason at 9 and Rashford on the left if we got a creative for the right. When’s the last bit of great interplay between our forwards? Who is our most influential forward by far? It’s always get the ball on the edge of the box run into a crowd and lose it or pass back and engineer the same situation but on the other side of the pitch. We need more early balls across the box and aggressive runners in behind but that rarely happens because it’s not rashfords game.
 
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DoomSlayer

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Man, if only Rashford was in the Championship, so that Money Mase and Tony Ice Cold Martial could be killing the league and CL... :(
 
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They are not "making" him play. What they are doing wrong is ALLOWING him to play. Which is because he's the best option we've got even if he's only 50% fit. Probably paid off as he got us a goal but he should never have played.
The person I was replying to said:

'I vehemently disagree with our coaching staff for making him do it'

If it wasn't safe to for him to play the medical staff wouldn't allow. If Rashford himself didn't feel up to playing he wouldn't.

Players have always played carrying the odd injury, somehow it's newsworthy these days.
 

roonster09

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Some of the logic in this thread :lol:

We are not good enough, so we have to drop one of our best player instead of upgrading weak position.
 

DoomSlayer

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Some of the logic in this thread :lol:

We are not good enough, so we have to drop one of our best player instead of upgrading weak position.
There is no logic, there are just agendas that certain posters can't wait to push. I'm 1000% certain that a few of the more vocal "fans" dislike Rashford because he is English, they just don't have the courage to be blunt about it.

At least the twats on Twitter don't hide their agendas and show off their stupidity to the whole world.
 

Ramshock

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Some of the logic in this thread :lol:

We are not good enough, so we have to drop one of our best player instead of upgrading weak position.
There's an elephant in the room in this thread but people just don't want to admit it. Had Marcus been white and not politically motivated he wouldn't have been getting the same shit.
 

Ali Dia

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There is no logic, there are just agendas that certain posters can't wait to push. I'm 1000% certain that a few of the more vocal "fans" dislike Rashford because he is English, they just don't have the courage to be blunt about it.

At least the twats on Twitter don't hide their agendas and show off their stupidity to the whole world.

Now that’s the most moronic thing you’ve said all day. Takes some doing.

We all support an English team. How do you know who is English on here? Do you guess? I’m Irish but I’ve spent about half my life living in England, if that matters. I guess in this context it does. Oh if he was from any other country nobody would be saying anything? It’s not where he’s from or if he’s black or political. In fact I think I enjoy the fact that he’s black and political more than I do his play currently. Are you English? It’s who he plays for and how his general play is nothing more. Look in any other thread. Every other United player gets it after one off bad performances but Rashford is totally off limits after a year of mixed and quite selfish play?

I don’t know if you remember Andy Cole. He was our top scorer but his play was rough and he missed a lot of chances and killed good moves aplenty before he’d score one. Everyone was majorly hating on him until Yorke came in and then he really came to life. Now he’s a legend. Rashford can get fitter and still improve and hopefully win us the league and the CL, especially if we bring in some better players around him but until then to act like he’s currently above any critique because he’s got some goals is just seriously obtuse.

Flippantly playing the race and nationality card is frankly pathetic. You are either an atrocious banter poster or you’re having a bad day.
 
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DoomSlayer

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Now that’s the most moronic thing you’ve said all day. Takes some doing.

We all support an English team. How do you know who is English on here? Do you guess? I’m Irish but I’ve spent about half my life living in England. Oh if he was from any other country nobody would be saying anything? It’s not where he’s from or if he’s black or political. In fact I think I enjoy the fact that he’s black and political more than I do his play currently. Are you English? It’s who he plays for and how his general play is nothing more. Look in any other thread. Every other United player gets it after one off bad performances but Rashford is totally off limits after a year of mixed and quite selfish play?

I don’t know if you remember Andy Cole. He was our top scorer but his play was rough and he missed a lot of chances and killed good moves aplenty before he’d score one. Everyone was majorly hating on him until Yorke came in and then he really came to life. Now he’s a legend. Rashford can get fitter and still improve and hopefully win us the league and the CL, especially if we bring in some better players around him but until then to act like he’s currently above any critique because he’s got some goals is just seriously obtuse.

Flippantly playing the race and nationality card is frankly pathetic. You are either an atrocious poster or you’re having a bad day.
I'm not scared of sharing my nationality, it's right there under my "messages" count. I have seen enough of the disgusting racist and xenophobic agenda on Twitter against some of our own players, so I have made the conclusion that we definitely have quite a few of those same twats, with the same mindset, right here on the Caf.

It doesn't matter how much you try to justify your hate, even if you write a 100 more paragraphs, it's just a load of shit. Marcus has been our best forward in the last 2 years and probably our 2nd best player (after Bruno, this season Shaw has caught up and is right up there as well). If whatever I said or claimed was moronic, your claims that Rashford is one of the main problems in our team can't be judged on any "stupidity scale", you're going off the charts with that one.
 

markhughes

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Nothing but respect for Marcus, he gives everything he has and plays through injuries when others wouldn’t. That’s without mentioning his off field exploits, only the most bitter of fan wouldn’t be proud that this lad plays for Man Utd.
 

jem

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Why do so many conflate his off the field success with his on the field performance? This is so bizarre. Insane how his altruism off the pitch should warrant him playing more minutes in a match when he is subpar.

He deserved to be subbed yesterday on his performance alone up until the goal. It was a 3 to 4 out of ten performance until that point. He was rightfully allowed to stay on after to see if he could improve upon that, but took a knock. The sub was right in coming, probably was discussed far before the goal.
To be honest, I think there are more people like you who are looking for people conflating his off-field activities with on-field performance than there are people actually doing so. I'd say the fact that he is an academy product who has been very productive is the reason why he will be our starting LW for years to come.
 

Ali Dia

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I'm not scared of sharing my nationality, it's right there under my "messages" count. I have seen enough of the disgusting racist and xenophobic agenda on Twitter against some of our own players, so I have made the conclusion that we definitely have quite a few of those same twats, with the same mindset, right here on the Caf.

It doesn't matter how much you try to justify your hate, even if you write a 100 more paragraphs, it's just a load of shit. Marcus has been our best forward in the last 2 years and probably our 2nd best player (after Bruno, this season Shaw has caught up and is right up there as well). If whatever I said or claimed was moronic, your claims that Rashford is one of the main problems in our team can't be judged on any "stupidity scale", you're going off the charts with that one.
Let’s have a conversation about how Rashford can improve.

No anyone saying he can improve is just talking shit :lol:

Ok then...

Also what’s the Craic with you playing the xenophobia card when you’re an international fan yourself? So you think foreign fans pick on players just because they are English? Why do they follow English teams then at all? It’s just because he’s a big star at one of the biggest clubs in the world. Some criticism goes with the territory whether you like it or not
 

vodrake

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I've never really understood what that means.
Generally means people are being too positive about players or the club, and not being critical and whining about every little thing as any true fan should
 

DoomSlayer

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Let’s have a conversation about how Rashford can improve.

No anyone saying he can improve is just talking shit :lol:

Ok then...

Also what’s the Craic with you playing the xenophobia card when you’re an international fan yourself? So you think foreign fans pick on players just because they are English? Why do they follow English teams then at all? It’s just because he’s a big star at one of the biggest clubs in the world. Some criticism goes with the territory whether you like it or not
I'd like to see your genuine criticism for the manager and the rest of the team, because it seems you have so much to say about Rashford. You can probably write a whole book about everyone else at the club, at this rate.
 

shamans

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There is no logic, there are just agendas that certain posters can't wait to push. I'm 1000% certain that a few of the more vocal "fans" dislike Rashford because he is English, they just don't have the courage to be blunt about it.

At least the twats on Twitter don't hide their agendas and show off their stupidity to the whole world.
I would like to know who dislikes Rashford. Would also like to know who dislikes a player for being English in their English club. What a looney post. So is this what it's about? You perceive any criticism of Rashford as some attack on England? :lol:
 

DoomSlayer

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I would like to know who dislikes Rashford. Would also like to know who dislikes a player for being English in their English club. What a looney post. So is this what it's about? You perceive any criticism of Rashford as some attack on England? :lol:
No, I'm saying we have a lot of racists and xenophobes in our fanbase. Just check out the more prominent Twitter pages about our club and you'll see how obvious it is.
 

RedDevilzFox

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Statement 1: Its retarded. No one dislikes Rashford. You have to be a moron or a (strong) United hater to dislike that guy.

Statement 2: No one is above criticism, specially if some of the weaknesses are the same old same old year after year.

Now both of the above statements can be true at the same time and can coexist.
 

shamans

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Some of the logic in this thread :lol:

We are not good enough, so we have to drop one of our best player instead of upgrading weak position.
I haven't read this logic you're talking about but you might be talking about something like this:

If you have a fast F1 car and put an average joe in the driving seat and constantly finish last in the race, would you say it's flawed logic to "replace our best driver??"

I think Rashford right now is probably our best LW and Forward (heck maybe even right wing) but that says more about our other players than Marcus. On top of that, Rash is given full privilege to go on and attack and run into defense. Again, I like Rashford and he's a good player but if we're to become the team we want to be having a player like Rashford as "one of our best" is troubling.
 

shamans

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No, I'm saying we have a lot of racists and xenophobes in our fanbase. Just check out the more prominent Twitter pages about our club and you'll see how obvious it is.
What? You clearly the vocal fanbase regarding rashford don't like him because he's English but don't have the courage. Honestly what a stupid thing to say.
 

Ali Dia

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I'd like to see your genuine criticism for the manager and the rest of the team, because it seems you have so much to say about Rashford. You can probably write a whole book about everyone else at the club, at this rate.
I think we clearly need signings. We can agree on that I’m sure. Everyone, Rashford included, can still go up another level. Imagine a fully fit Rashford Sancho and Greenwood or Haaland running at you with Bruno in behind. it’s just a totally different proposition to the 1 dimensional play we exhibit these days. I feel like Rashford is currently an awkward mixture between a striker and a winger. Definitely scoring a lot for a winger but just doing ok for an everything goes through me I’ll stay up top and not press or track striker in a top team. He doesn’t have the movement of a striker and he plays into defenders hands taking up the same positions and making the same strange choices over and over. Maybe it’s just tiredness.

I think he’s potentially top class but not this ball losing low movement sloppy play incarnation, that’s functional at best. I understand everyone is totally wrecked at the moment and genuinely major respect to Rashford for playing through any pain to help us but at what point do you just say here this lad needs a break, it’s affecting the teams play overall and we might be damaging the player? I can’t remember the last game I watched where I was thinking wow Rashford really has this game by the scruff of the neck. Sociadad away. The EL is nothing to write home about. Their best player was a United cast off, Liverpool in the cup was class Top stuff but games like that have been few and far between and matches like last night have become the norm to be totally fair.
 
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shamans

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Statement 1: Its retarded. No one dislikes Rashford. You have to be a moron or a (strong) United hater to dislike that guy.

Statement 2: No one is above criticism, specially if some of the weaknesses are the same old same old year after year.

Now both of the above statements can be true at the same time and can coexist.
Error 503 tunnel vision fan head space overloaded -- cannot comprehend two independent statements as coexisting.
 

DoomSlayer

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I haven't read this logic you're talking about but you might be talking about something like this:

If you have a fast F1 car and put an average joe in the driving seat and constantly finish last in the race, would you say it's flawed logic to "replace our best driver??"

I think Rashford right now is probably our best LW and Forward (heck maybe even right wing) but that says more about our other players than Marcus. On top of that, Rash is given full privilege to go on and attack and run into defense. Again, I like Rashford and he's a good player but if we're to become the team we want to be having a player like Rashford as "one of our best" is troubling.
So what is the point of your hate towards Rashford? Do you want him sold or do you want the other attackers to be sold so we buy 4-5 new strikers and wingers? What is inside your big brain and do you think you actually have any realistic thoughts going on in there?
 

DoomSlayer

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I think we clearly need signings. We can agree on that I’m sure. Everyone, Rashford included, can still go up another level. Imagine a fully fit Rashford Sancho and Greenwood or Haaland running at you with Bruno in behind. it’s just a totally different proposition to the 1 dimensional play we exhibit these days. I feel like Rashford is currently an awkward mixture between a striker and a winger. Definitely scoring a lot for a winger but just doing ok for an everything goes through me I’ll stay up top and not press or track striker in a top team. He doesn’t have the movement of a striker and he plays into defenders hands taking up the same positions and making the same strange choices over and over. Maybe it’s just tiredness.

I think he’s potentially top class but not this ball losing low movement sloppy play incarnation. I understand everyone is totally wrecked at the moment and genuinely major respect to Rashford for playing through any pain to help us but at what point do you just say here this lad needs a break, it’s affecting the teams play overall and we might be damaging the player? I can’t remember the last game I watched where I was thinking wow Rashford really has this game by the scruff of the neck. Sociadad away. The EL is nothing to write home about. Their best player was a United cast off, Liverpool in the cup was class Top stuff but games like that have been few and far between and matches like last night have become the norm to be totally fair.
I'm in genuine disbelief. You say all that and then decide to focus so much on Rashford? Do you actually understand how ridiculous that is?

You can say that Marcus can do better and go up a level, that's just how it is. But why the feck is everything else somehow his fault? I don't think any of you that are so adamant about their criticism understand the current position of our club and what can realistically be achieved.
 

roonster09

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I haven't read this logic you're talking about but you might be talking about something like this:

If you have a fast F1 car and put an average joe in the driving seat and constantly finish last in the race, would you say it's flawed logic to "replace our best driver??"

I think Rashford right now is probably our best LW and Forward (heck maybe even right wing) but that says more about our other players than Marcus. On top of that, Rash is given full privilege to go on and attack and run into defense. Again, I like Rashford and he's a good player but if we're to become the team we want to be having a player like Rashford as "one of our best" is troubling.
Rashford is not just our best LW, he is one of the best wingers in the league and his numbers prove that.

Players like Martial, Greenwood should step up and then players like Fred, McTominay, Lindelof, AWB should be upgraded with better players.

If we don't want Rashford as one of our better players then we should sign players with much better players in our weak positions.

Btw terrible analogy. We have squad of 20+ players with many chances to claim their position as our better players.
 

Ali Dia

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[/QUOTEI'm in genuine disbelief. You say all that and then decide to focus so much on Rashford? Do you actually understand how ridiculous that is?

You can say that Marcus can do better and go up a level, that's just how it is. But why the feck is everything else somehow his fault? I don't think any of you that are so adamant about their criticism understand the current position of our club and what can realistically be achieved.
[/QUOTE]


If you read any of my previous posts today before steaming into me that’s exactly what I’ve been saying. He can and should still improve. Nothing wrong with saying he’s being very wasteful or his decision making looks blinkered or he’s killing a lot of our promising play. Some people just see Rashfords name and some criticism and start freaking out when there’s absolutely no need for it. You’d swear I was calling for him to be sold all day! I just want to have a conversation about how he can improve but we can’t without it being implied we are idiots or xenophobes or racist or something by posters blindly standing up for their favourites regardless of their actual performances.
 

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Like any young striker, Rashford hasn't gotten the whole thing figured out yet. When he has a bad game, I'll probably mention it, but I won't get toxic about it. A player would have to be totally awful for a long time for me to get toxic, and then I'll just complain that he needs to go. Except for Lukaku. I'll always make fun of his first touch.

That said Marcus has a lot more upside to his game and I look forward to watching him develop that.

As for his current "playing injured," I'm not privy to a number of things, including what's going on in Rashford's body, what's going on in his mind, what's going on between him and the medical staff, what's going on on the training pitch, or what discussions he's had with Ole. In fact, I doubt anyone here is. So Rashford, the staff, or Ole may be foolish. Or they may know what they're doing. But a lot of players play hurt, because it's what they do. And a lot of "I told you so"s will get thrown around if he does get seriously injured, whether it's due to him playing hurt or not. Or he might just make it through the season, heal up over the summer, and be just fine. At this point, I'll just have to trust the parties directly involved.
 

Park's Petrified Pooch

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Rashford this season has reminded me of late stage Rooney. At times he’s been woeful across entire games, but he’s producing key contributions at critical moments. I don’t think he’s the most intelligent in terms of his movement, critical thinking, or mixing his game up. But he’s still been one of our best performers in terms of output. If he can do this in a ‘bad’ season, I’d love to see a fully fit, well coached, more polished version of him. He’d be world class.
 

Ali Dia

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I would like to add at this point. I really like watching Rashford when he’s on it so it’s been quite a hard watch for the last while. I have faith he’ll be a much more willing runner next year if we can get to the bottom of his injuries.

Him telling Maguire to “feck off you knobend” when he asked him to move in the palace game where we weren’t creating anything at all really sticks out in my mind. Same with the WBA game. Maguire running up and down the pitch past him trying everything to get the points in the bag. That surely can’t be right? I look forward to seeing a fit and firing Rashford next season and hope we can still get it together and play some nice stuff closing out this season but it looks like we are probably going to fall over the line either way because our squad is thin
 

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So after reading everything I wrote that’s all you can come up with in reply?

It’s universally accepted that our play isn’t easy on the eye or fluid. Everything we do in an attacking sense is to accommodate Rashford or it goes through Rashford at some point. He and Bruno have total creative freedom. He’s also our laziest player by some distance. Our other forwards might actually have something to work with if Rashford gave them the ball on the counter the odd time or won a tackle high up and sent one of them through. They might even have a few more assists if he’d make more runs into dangerous areas instead of waiting for it in the same position over and over. Our other forwards are his backing band currently. They also always have to press defend and track back. Does that account for their form falling off a cliff? No but all these graphs and charts with the top scoring and assisting players are forgetting one thing. Every other player on the list above Rashford is scoring more in CL not the EL. At the moment we are battling for the EL for the last 2 seasons. that’s the standard that Rashford as our main danger and the rest of our players are currently setting for better or worse. It’s not Rashford fault but he’s as much part of the issue as anyone else
You are looking at it completely backwards. The reason a lot of our play goes through Bruno and Rashford isn’t because they somehow demand that it does so or some strategic decision. It’s because they are our best players. We would be far stronger if our striker and RW were performing at the same level as Rashford and could operate a balanced attack. Who knows, maybe then he might get some one on ones from time to time, as opposed to have to try and make something happen when teams can double up on him.

Please can you post some stats to back up your assertion that he continually loses the ball and breaks down our moves. I’d expect him to lose it slightly more as we expect him to be more of a risk taker but my instinct is that he probably doesn’t give it away much more than any of our other forwards. Similarly, how do his movement stats compare to the others? How do they compare to his figures before his back injury - does it suggest we are protecting him rather than him being lazy?

As for the CL/EC point, I’m afraid that’s a laughably bad argument. He’s the 3rd top scorer in the CL this year, so he’s clearly been performing as well/better than everyone bar two players in that competition. He scored in four of our six games, including the winner away at PSG and a magnificent hat trick against Leipzig. He frankly couldn’t have done any more.
 

Doracle

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I would like to add at this point. I really like watching Rashford when he’s on it so it’s been quite a hard watch for the last while. I have faith he’ll be a much more willing runner next year if we can get to the bottom of his injuries.

Him telling Maguire to “feck off you knobend” when he asked him to move in the palace game where we weren’t creating anything at all really sticks out in my mind. Same with the WBA game. Maguire running up and down the pitch past him trying everything to get the points in the bag. That surely can’t be right? I look forward to seeing a fit and firing Rashford next season and hope we can still get it together and play some nice stuff closing out this season but it looks like we are probably going to fall over the line either way because our squad is thin
This is a much fairer post. I don’t think anyone in the pro Rashford camp is saying he is above criticism or playing perfectly. He’s clearly not. What we are pushing back against is unreasonable sweeping criticisms which fail to take into account any context. Our squad needs two more quality forward players in my view and, if we had those, we might be able to get even more out of Marcus (or actually rest him - see Shaw for an example of what having adequate cover can do for a player).
 

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You are looking at it completely backwards. The reason a lot of our play goes through Bruno and Rashford isn’t because they somehow demand that it does so or some strategic decision. It’s because they are our best players. We would be far stronger if our striker and RW were performing at the same level as Rashford and could operate a balanced attack. Who knows, maybe then he might get some one on ones from time to time, as opposed to have to try and make something happen when teams can double up on him.

Please can you post some stats to back up your assertion that he continually loses the ball and breaks down our moves. I’d expect him to lose it slightly more as we expect him to be more of a risk taker but my instinct is that he probably doesn’t give it away much more than any of our other forwards. Similarly, how do his movement stats compare to the others? How do they compare to his figures before his back injury - does it suggest we are protecting him rather than him being lazy?

As for the CL/EC point, I’m afraid that’s a laughably bad argument. He’s the 3rd top scorer in the CL this year, so he’s clearly been performing as well/better than everyone bar two players in that competition. He scored in four of our six games, including the winner away at PSG and a magnificent hat trick against Leipzig. He frankly couldn’t have done any more.
Being the best of a slightly above average bunch still doesn’t make you world class or above criticism it just makes you the best of an average bunch. I could go and get stats for strikers vs wingers and players who don’t defend at other top clubs and and keep this going all night but to be honest I’m currently Rashford’d out. Almost every other player on that list a few pages ago that’s ahead of him is still in the CL and performing and he’s getting subbed off against some minors in the EL where he lost the ball every time he touched it apart from the goal. Should we not expect more from his all round game?.Should we have more quality around him and players to rotate him with? Yes 100% I would never argue that point. We need players.

At the end of the day he’s been by far one of our best players but in a period we’ve won nothing in years. So there’s no need for me to argue anymore. There’s nothing he can or should improve on and I kinda regret I said anything in the first place. Have a good evening and sorry for the lame reply.
 
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FatTails

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If Rashford was playing for someone else, we’d all be happy to buy him for 80m+. It would go something like this:

I know lewandowski is great but he’s practically 40. Rashford is English, young, has blistering pace, and scores and assists tons. Pay 80m now and we could lock down a forward position for a decade. He’s versatile and can play anywhere across the front 3. He’s mature beyond his age and has a great attitude what with playing through injuries and all the stuff he’s done for the community.
In all seriousness, he’s fantastic. I think if we put him and Martial/Greenwood in a 3-5-2/3-4-1-2 with Fernandes behind them, he would score even more goals. We just don’t have the CBs for it and a right wingback (Shaw would be good on the left and Pogba + Fred/McTominay would work in midfield). Separate discussion though.
 

Valencia Shin Crosses

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Ultimately you think that your view on the players and his performances is more important than Rashford consistently putting the ball in the back of the net.

Fair enough.

Your view on a performance of one of our most consistent performers means absolutely crap all just like mine doesn't mean anything to you.

The difference is that Rashford scores and I get on my knees for what he brings to this club whilst you turn your back and tell him he should be doing better. That at the age of 23 he should be playing like Messi with dribbling skills, shooting skills and even perfect passing skills against low block teams.

I guess that's what makes me a 'top red' because I can differentiate the need to cut and examine a player that has been consistent for us and scores us match winning goal after match winning goal - whilst you just do it anyway because you feel that you deserve perfection.
Jesus no this makes no sense. You do realize no one that evaluates a performance in these threads is sending fecking hate mail to Rashys flat about his last match right? I’m not DMing the guy after last night giving him advice on how to up his game, I’m discussing it with other fans on a forum made for discussing United football. I try not to let emotions cloud judgement on watching a player in an individual game either. Also said nothing about how he needs to play like Messi, you’re putting words in my mouth.

I, like I assume everyone else here, just want to see the club get back to the top of the league/ Europe. So in doing so I evaluate how we can do that and which players are vital in their progression for us to take that next step. Rashford as currently constructed is extremely talented but also frustrating in certain parts of his game that have to improve for us to raise our game as a club with him as a talisman. I’m not starting some hate train (in fact I rebel against many of them from people similar to yourself who have agendas for certain players because of their emotional attachment).

Bottom line is this place is extremely reactionary either way, and I’d like to see more discussion in the middle as it makes for more interesting content.
 

NZT-One

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Jesus no this makes no sense. You do realize no one that evaluates a performance in these threads is sending fecking hate mail to Rashys flat about his last match right? I’m not DMing the guy after last night giving him advice on how to up his game, I’m discussing it with other fans on a forum made for discussing United football. I try not to let emotions cloud judgement on watching a player in an individual game either. Also said nothing about how he needs to play like Messi, you’re putting words in my mouth.

...

Bottom line is this place is extremely reactionary either way, and I’d like to see more discussion in the middle as it makes for more interesting content.
Amen to that.

I also think, that Rashford deserves the same treatment as every other player in the team. That includes criticizing him where one feels it is due. I think, his development stalled this year (I even tend to say it went backwards a bit). When he entered the scene he was such a good finisher, then he added some insane speed dribbling and nice trickery into his game. Last year we even saw glimpses of what he can offer when trying to facilitate for others. All that accompanied by workrate and bite, willingness to make runs and taking on players. Where he fell short has been his decision making and partly his overeagerness to force things.

This year we still see runs, we still see some trickery but his finishing ability seems to have crashed (same could be said for Martial as well). His decision making is back to a bad level, so often he is dribbling head down into a bunch of defenders, it is infuriating. Just as much as his (shared with Greenwoods) tendency to always look for a way to finish a move, rarely thinking first about how to facilitate one for others. He might play with a knock, he might struggle with the amount of games - all could be factors but I hesitate to really validate them. He is playing as he is playing now most of the season, I remember no game where he was man of the match individually due to an overall good display. He, together with Bruno, was the only player who really could be considered as being in form (leaning output wise, not performance) and the two players bailed us out often and credit to him (them) for doing it, but it should be noted, that there doesn't seem to be some sort of development. He just continues to do the same things while the environment has changed, teams approach games against us differently. As Bruno, I get often the feeling that he seems to think he has to force it and I get it, that is something that goes away with experience but at some point the manager has to step in to provide some guidance for a very talented player that seems to have reached some sort of plateau.

Without wanting to add another factor in an already bloated equasion: I think, Rashford would be one of the players to really benefit from having a less radical play-striker-in-asap- approach as we use it now (preferably). His dribbling is good but not good enough to handle two or more opponents, if we could create situations more often, where he could isolate a defender and then has not only one available option ("Shoot somehow") but also the willingness to cross (the will and some colleagues in position to cash-in a good cross) than we would be way better off. I also tend to feel that Rashford and Greenwood should improve their use of the space of the pitch - I get that inverted winger thing and I know they are strikers but damn it, if they play where they play they have to be taught, that drifting to the inside !!everytime!! makes the pitch smaller and smaller and their tasks of penetrating a defense even more difficult.

I know all this talk of better players, having an "actual RW", an "very good DM to be able to pair Pogba and Bruno" or the same that goes for a CB, but I don't think, that this is a factor, that should make the task of evaluating a player as hard as some are making it out to be. Better team mates are positive for every player, it is a zero sum argument. It is an argument when thinking about the team as a whole, but not when trying to evaluate a player.
 
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DoomSlayer

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I remember no game where he was man of the match individually due to an overall good display. He, together with Bruno, was the only player who really could be considered as being in form (leaning output wise, not performance) and the two players bailed us out often and credit to him (them) for doing it, but it should be noted, that there doesn't seem to be some sort of development. He just continues to do the same things while the environment has changed, teams approach games against us differently. As Bruno, I get often the feeling that he seems to think he has to force it and I get it, that is something that goes away with experience but at some point the manager has to step in to provide some guidance for a very talented player that seems to have reached some sort of plateau.
Since you like to use Caf stats so much, Rashford has been voted MOTM in 4 games:
  1. 5:0 home win against RB Leipzig, where he scored a hattrick - 9.7 rating;
  2. 3:2 away win against Sheffield United - 8.0 rating;
  3. 3:2 home win against Liverpool - 8.0 rating
  4. 3-1 home win against Newcastle - 7.1 rating.
I'd also like to hear which players, apart from Luke Shaw, can objectively have an argument about performing more consistently than Marcus and Bruno. These 3 players are the catalyst for almost everything good in our team, surely every other member of the squad deserves much more criticism.
 

Marzo

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Despite carrying a well publicised injury through most of the season, he's going to finish with 20+ goals and 10+ assists playing from a wide position, without taking penalties. And he's been scoring important goals against tough opposition, not like he's stat padding in easy games

I've never seen a player who some fans are just so determined to hate no matter what
Hell yeah,those numbers are brilliant and we are still criticizing him, this place is insane, most other top teams would love those returns, he is a great asset to this club, and he still gets criticized for his performance.
Enjoy him, his is going to be legend at Manchester United.