Rashford
Goals and assists per minute played : 1 every 207 minutes. Without the 2 penalties (that Bruno really shouldn’t of given him but were done to pick rash up), it goes down to 252 minutes
Anthony
Goals and assists per minute played : 1 every 407 minutes
One thing you get with Anthony is hard work. I’d argue Anthony’s performance against Chelsea was better than anything Rashford has done this season. You could also make the argument that Anthony missing alot of games reduced his chance of getting full fitness and Rashford playing regardless of form has given him more opportunities to pad his goal/assist stats.
Does Rashford get a far easier time of it because he’s a club youth product and he’s English ? Seems like this places a huge role. Even when Hoijland wasn’t scoring he was working hard and yet he was getting stick when our most dangerous forward last season was sort of getting a pass.
I don’t normally like singling out players like this cause there’s enough people who get on the backs of managers/players. But I feel Rashford gets far more leeway when you look at the season and the “efforts” he has made in some games.
On a side note, do people think he’s coached to trot beside opponents? It’s a serious question. There are some coaches who do give certain players allowances , like is there any chance Rash is allowed to basically not work as hard, in the hope he preserves his energy for explosive runs? I’m not saying that BTW, only thinking out loud if there might be an alternative explanation to “WTF , why is he not tracking back or closing that player down?!”
Just like in management not everyone is a team player. Some would just refuse to follow instruction. Yes. So what?
Sadly it happens in all walk of life. Professionalism is not a guarantee.
In some case the boss (manager) is tough enough he can chop these insubordination, in some case managers just go on with the flow hoping they can outlast the p45. In football case once the majority of player stop playing for the manager they're mostly done.
So it's not a clear cut of he's being told A or B.
In an ideal world ETH should be strict and bench the culprit, but when he holds big influence in the dressing room it's not as simple as that. Moyes rightly or wrongly got undermined pretty bad with his managerial decisions being leaked out (chips) and ridiculed, the play it like Jagielka incident was very unprofessional from our old guards even if we all knew he's out of his depth. Can you imagine Moyes tactics would work if the whole team are trying to spite him. The 82 cross against Fulham is them taking the piss out of Moyes
Hypothetically if SAF in his prime is managing Rashford, chances are he'll behave because he knows this is one mean BAMF you cant feck around with. Not so with ETH.
Even the fans simply refuse to call Rashford out at times, and still defending him till today. Can you imagine if somehow ETH has a crystal ball and start benching Rashford from year 1 or put him on transfer list? There'd be riot wanting him gone.