Rashford out partying at nightclub hours before reporting as too ill to attend training

clarkydaz said:

We're not elite level athletes

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Plenty of elite level athletes smoke, drink, eat the wrong things and do all manner of stuff that isn't optimal. Always have, always will.

Obviously if he's gone out on the lash and called in sick the day after, that's not good but it doesn't need to be a huge deal. Ten Hag should give him a massive bollocking privately but make a joke out of it/ignore to the media and move on.

I saw one of those stupid shorts on YouTube that said he’s just back with his gf again around the spurs game after yet another break up and those times in the past he doesn’t run or look like he wants to be out there is when they’ve broken up.

I just had this mad thought in my head of him saying to her look I’m going to play shit until you come back to me. Kind of like emotional blackmail? maybe she just supports city

ill? What a clown, just admit you're hungover.

duffer said:

Plenty of elite level athletes smoke, drink, eat the wrong things and do all manner of stuff that isn't optimal. Always have, always will.

Obviously if he's gone out on the lash and called in sick the day after, that's not good but it doesn't need to be a huge deal. Ten Hag should give him a massive bollocking privately but make a joke out of it/ignore to the media and move on.

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How long have you been here mate? Like for real, making a huge deal out of everything has become a prerequisite I'm afraid.

fgds

Some extreme reactions on here. Do we really think this doesn't happen up and down the country? They're not all going to be the utmost professionals, at all times, for every game. Stupid stuff will happen. We do it and so do footballers.

Sit him down, punish him, and then we move on.

You can't really compare it to Sancho because the issue there was ongoing, consistent, and most importantly what sealed his fate is he didn't show the humility to go to the manager and admit his errors. That failure to admit and take ownership of the situation is far worse going forward than failing to report to training for going on the lash. So let's just see how they deal with the situation.

soapythecat said:

Could be a blessing in disguise this:
Hopefully, this will be the start of him getting sold. Any funds, like Greenwood too, are good for FFP. Rashford is easily replaced and wages will be half of his.
He won’t be missed. This season alone should serve as reason that he’s way too inconsistent to continue to start for us. Bruno will stay and he’s too inconsistent also - can’t afford to have 2 of them starting.
Unfortunately, I think he comes out and apologises and gets back in the side. His poor season continues and we are back to square one.

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Spot on. About everything, including Bruno.

Abraxas said:

Some extreme reactions on here. Do we really think this doesn't happen up and down the country? They're not all going to be the utmost professionals, at all times, for every game. Stupid stuff will happen. We do it and so do footballers.

Sit him down, punish him, and then we move on.

You can't really compare it to Sancho because the issue there was ongoing, consistent, and most importantly what sealed his fate is he didn't show the humility to go to the manager and admit his errors. That failure to admit and take ownership of the situation is far worse going forward than failing to report to training for going on the lash. So let's just see how they deal with the situation.

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It’s starting to become an ongoing issue with Rashford though. He missed training at the start of December due to illness…just so happens the day before he was dropped to the bench for the Bournemouth game. Suspect to say the least.

Hes out every weekend by the way. It’s well known that he’s a regular at Chinawhite and a few other places in town. Look I’m all for players living their lives but if it’s affecting their performance at the club they can get fecked.

Grealish likes going out. Just so happens he can turn up for training and win a treble though.

Does anybody know if he had a decent night out?

In Belfast?
Sounds like he's suffered enough

golden_blunder said:

Be interesting to see what you’d say if it was a Chelsea player and he was in a stinking season

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I've just assumed they've all been out on the piss every other night for the past couple of years.

moses said:

There is a chance he wasn't drinking?

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Yep, like most young ones these days drinking is least of the problem.

moses said:

There is a chance he wasn't drinking?

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He was drinking and vaping openly in Laverys and Thompsons is not a place anyone has been sober.

moses said:

There is a chance he wasn't drinking?

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Doubt thats material. At the end of the day he went to 2 night clubs before deciding he's too ill to train.

I suppose the question I have is “is there an evidence that players at City and pool get up to these sort of things, even in time off”. This is the second event in the last 3 months.

If more successful club players don’t do it and those squads frown upon it, then that suggests that it is part of the cultural issue at United.

If you find that most successful clubs (ones we aspire to be better then), have players who don’t engage in this sort of antics mid season, then it’s a question of professionalism. I expect the highest standards , not just because of his wages , but because we expect the highest standards from the players with the highest standing at the club.

A player doing something for enjoyment is not wrong per say. In many cases , once they are performing on the field, I don’t think anybody cares what they do. But social media enterprises and going out socialising bring the wrong attention. It doesnt matter that “he’s a lad enjoying himself”, the fact is that fans are his employer. People forget that, so fans have a right to be angry when it looks like an employee is taking the piss.

So I have no sympathy for players getting well remunerated , who make the silliest mistakes like this. It looks like a FU to United fans, like his stupid gesture after the goal. If he does neither, he brings no attention on himself.

Give me a squad of Paul Scholes every day of the week.

Can we quickly sell him to PSG and get Hugo Ekitke as a makeweight in the deal?
26 and not learning sheesh

golden_blunder said:

He was. I’ve seen pics from laverys bar where he was at one stage. Also vaping it seems

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People keep saying this, but I’ve not seen any. Just because you are buying a round, doesn’t mean you are drinking.

moses said:

Without drinking, it's just staying up late.

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It's not though. Staying up late resting and recuperating is one thing. Going to two nightclubs to party is another.

TMDaines said:

People keep saying this, but I’ve not seen any. Just because you are buying a round, doesn’t mean you are drinking.

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There are videos doing the rounds on whatsapp....they will come out eventually.

TMDaines said:

People keep saying this, but I’ve not seen any. Just because you are buying a round, doesn’t mean you are drinking.

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Yeah it's the same as those who went to Epstein Island just for the view.

The Firestarter said:

Yeah it's the same as those who went to Epstein Island just for the view.

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I’d probably rethink that post if you don’t want to trivialise those things.

TMDaines said:

People keep saying this, but I’ve not seen any. Just because you are buying a round, doesn’t mean you are drinking.

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In last few months he’s gone out after we lost to city and now has this incident. Football now is as much about optics as it is anything else. If you aren’t performing well, a clever player keeps their head down and doesn’t do anything that will clearly add fuel to the pressure they are under.

This seems to be something some modern footballers don’t seem to get. Whether it’s Pogba/Lingard and their social media sh*te or Rashford and his ill advised excursions, players have to start owning the trouble they are causing themselves and their manager and their team by extension.

At the top level of sport , it’s not unreasonable to set standards and expect players to meet these standards. He doesn’t appear willing or able to meet even basic standards of not drawing negative attention to himself. Is it really that unreasonable to expect a professional athlete to not go out to a niteclub during their working season?

FFS, some of you have zero standards to professional footballers. They get paid the big bucks because more is expected of them.

And for all the “players in the past used to drink” nonsense, the sport is at different level to what it was even 20 years ago. Not just that, players today are getting double digit multiple of income to compensate them for being more professional. So expecting more from them is not unreasonable.

Was he definitely out clubbing? The article I read said he was visiting a football clubs academy that a friend of his plays for. Was there maybe another article posted which showed him out clubbing as I haven't read the whole thread.

It's possible that the illness may not be related to him going out at all, especially if its not even known if he was drinking. I think the accusations makes a mountain out of a mole hill.

I'm no Rashford fan either. But I think this thread is making it into a bigger issue than it needs to be.

golden_blunder said:

Let’s assume he’s not been drinking for a min, going clubbing in a different country the night before training doesn’t seem like a good idea especially when you call sick the day after you’ve been out. It’s a bad look of unprofessionalism

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I don’t think there’s many that disagrees with that. But with the information we currently we have, we don’t really know what has happened with any degree of certainty. Currently people are criticising Rashford for a range of scenarios from (a) going clubbing and getting drunk, before not turning up for training because he’s on flight back to England nursing a hangover (deeply unprofessional and inexcusable) or (b) having commuted straight to work from Belfast on time via a plane, after socialising with friends, but not drinking, whilst being excused from training the following day because he is carrying a minor injury.

The only reason we have to believe Rashford was ill was because Ten Hag said so. The problem is that Erik Ten Hag has frequently used the words “ill” and “illness” in press conferences to refer to physical injuries confusingly throughout this time at the club. It happened with Malacia, happened with Varane and happened with Martial only this month! Whitwell has mentioned this extensively, so I am surprised his reporting doesn’t cover this scenario.

If Rashford has done (a) he deserves to get the book thrown at him and it will be a quite a serious disciplinary issue. He’ll have been a complete and utter fecking idiot. If he’s done (b), then what are people getting worked up about? Taking a short haul flight to work directly, rather than doing so the night before?

golden_blunder said:

Btw Thompson’s garage is a dump, he will have been surrounded by hundreds sweating and drinking. Wouldn’t be surprised if he picked up some illness in there. Not much room to move

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Fairly certain I seen a picture of him snogging some doll too. Hard to make out but that's what it looked like.

moses said:

I'm not going to bat for him, just wondering if he's as fecking stupid as it appears.

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Fair play. I think he is pretty stupid and we have a few smaller instances to go by together with this one. Whether it was his mouthy celebration from scoring recently, or his poor punctuality before that, his decision to endorse Sancho at Dortmund or his latest decision to go to two night clubs before training before reporting 'ill'.

Sums up his attitude. I get footballers are people, but not all people earn £300k a week. He's become a really unlikeable character (football wise) and someone the club probably needs to move on from sooner rather than later

While I never like to jump to conclusions (the media love to twist a fact for clicks) what makes this particularly disappointing isn't just because he's Rashford the Manchester United footballer, but because he's Rashford the role model. It's often argued that footballers don't ask to be role models and consequently we shouldn't place such responsibility on their shoulders, but Rashford IS a role model. That's a simple fact. Thanks to his very public charity work, work with disadvantaged kids and youth programmes and 'literary endeavours' he has placed himself very much in the position of a role model and that comes with additional responsibilities. It astonishes me that he doesn't have a strong (non-football-related) PR team advising him to ensure incidents like this don't occur and how his footballing career directly impacts upon his non-football related philanthropic work. My son had to present a piece to his class on one of his heroes a couple of years back and he chose Rashford. Jump forward a couple of years and I know for a fact he wouldn't choose Rashford now. (Having said that, his favourite footballer now is Antony so he's clearly the worst judge possible )