He’s not our best paid player - that’s Casemiro. So you don’t think we can recruit the squad we want with Rashford on £300k a week? He will presumably drop to £225k next season if the usual 25% cut for missing UCL applies. Does that still seem a bar to recruitment? It didn’t stop us spending £250k a week on a squad player like Mount last summer so I’m doubtful it will prove any sort of bar currently, especially with Martial and Varane leaving releasing £600k per week off the wages.
I don’t think he should be the main man at the club or have the team built around him. He’s never given any suggestion that’s how to get the best out of him and very much comes across as the type of personality who will best thrive if he’s one of several players collectively leading the club forwards.
We will have to disagree on the amount he should track back. My own view is that he is doing too much this season (as is our other winger), as the structure seems entirely scattergun. There was a match earlier in the season (I think it was Bayern away) when I watched his defensive work closely and he seemed to have been tasked with pressing the right CB, man marking the RWB and also trying to cover the RCM. All credit to Rashford for trying to do it but it was absolute madness in terms of a defensive set up.
Of course, the amount of work our wingers are being asked to do would naturally improve if we developed a midfield/defence capable of controlling a match.
OK apologies, I forgot about Casemiro. It's a bar because you essentially need to buy the players to accomodate him
and the world class goal contributing players. They're not going to be on peanuts or cost little, so yeah I do think he is prohibitive. I don't think anyone would call Mount a good use of money currently, but I'm not sure he was bought as a squad player.
But he can't be commanding a 300k a week wage then, that's just ridiculous in terms of squad building.
Doing too much is not really something you can level at Rashford this season. He may think he's being asked to do too much, but that has subsequently led to him doing the absolute bare minimum or less at points. I personally think he presses like a dope and doesn't shape his run at all to force the play into the direction he's meant to be or understand how to cover passing lanes. He's not the only one, but I think if we ever want to be a team that presses from the front, it's folly to think Rashford would work, when he's never shown he can.
I'm hung up about his defensive output, but the only reason we're focused on it is because his attacking output is shocking. His hold up play is poor and he is one dimensional when taking people on, so I can only talk about the obvious things he can control when it's not going his way.
Anyway, back to Ten hag, I do agree he's probably picked the wrong players to try and implement his style and he continues to play them expecting different results. He'll ultimately pay the price with his job when it doesn't work, but the idea we should gloss over a player like Rashford contributing feck all to this season, seems remarkable when looking forward with this squad.
touché.