[Jev]

Alan Shearer said yesterday it looks like everything is a chore to him which is an apt description. He looks like someone who finds no joy in football whatsoever. Which is probably worse than just being frustrated and low on confidence.

He's one of those players who just hasn't improved at all since he was 19. He bought into his own hype early and visibly changed from a direct, aggressive player into someone who always stopped on the ball and wanted to be a flair player. His decision making is absolutely shocking and getting worse and worse. At the moment it's hard to see things turning for him anytime soon, if ever.

 

[SATA]

His form has been really baffling because when he first came back from surgery against Leicester and scored a really well taken goal, he appeared to be flying again and we are certain to see him back to his very best. Instead he has morphed to this out of sorts, not interested type. I’m not one to read into body language but it worries me. Maybe he’ll come out one day and talk about it

 

[mattunited1978]

Absolute disgrace, fecking awful attitude.

 

[stw2022]

This is the gradual decline some have seen for quite a while. He’s been regressing gradually for a long time. This isn’t a sudden change this is the trajectory he’s been on for last couple of years.

this is what happens to 90% of all footballers who look promising in their late teens/early 20s. It’s because standards have dropped so much at this club that he’s been allowed to become a fixture in team beyond the point where it was obvious he wasn’t kicking on as a player

 

[Barthez]

Too many off the field commitments and projects to save the world. He needs to remember he’s a footballer and put 110% into that.

 

[We need an rvn]

His form has been really baffling because when he first came back from surgery against Leicester and scored a really well taken goal, he appeared to be flying again and we are certain to see him back to his very best. Instead he has morphed to this out of sorts, not interested type. I’m not one to read into body language but it worries me. Maybe he’ll come out one day and talk about it

I agree. The shoulder injury was used as an excuse (and rightfully so as running in pain every session and match will impact performance), but that was fixed. No reason for him to be losing any pace at 24 and he should now be playing at his best, from a physical level.

So for me, I personally believe it's something mental, but that could be so many things and he needs to get it sorted quickly.
- lack of confidence / putting too much pressure on yourself to perform
- pressure on playing for United and us not winning (not sure on this one as he's played at OT for 7 years now)
- something at home or out of football (be it charity work / gf / suffering with anxiety etc. We've all been there at some stage when we've played where something at home hangs over us and we just don't have the enthusiasm to run as much as we do when feeling amazing mentally)

 

[red4ever 79]

Alan Shearer said yesterday it looks like everything is a chore to him which is an apt description. He looks like someone who finds no joy in football whatsoever. Which is probably worse than just being frustrated and low on confidence.

He's one of those players who just hasn't improved at all since he was 19. He bought into his own hype early and visible changed from a direct, aggressive player into someone who always stopped on the ball and wanted to be a flair player. His decision making is absolutely shocking and getting worse and worse. At the moment it's hard to see things turning for him anytime soon, if ever.

Having read many posts on this topic and also contributing myself, i think what you have described there is bang on.

 

[Kostov]

Will someone tell this clown that he is no Cristiano Ronaldo, that he has not won multiple Champions League medals, multiple Balon d"Ors not even the PL. He acts like he has nothing to prove, not even attempting to get to that rebound. Send him to the reserves.

 

[Pearl's a minger]

The woeful performances keep coming. Cant believe just how disinterested he looks on the pitch. Every little mistake he makes will me magnified because of how poor he's been for a prolonged period and quite rightly so. Some of his mistakes/decisions have been Pub league standard. Not sure what the answer is. Perhaps Ralf is hoping he can play himself back into form but currently he really doesn't deserve to be anywhere the 1st team starting eleven whatsoever.

 

[K Stand Knut]

I heard it with my own ears.

The Bruno sub was booed and the Rashford sub was ironically cheered that he was going off.

We must have had opposite reactions where we were in the ground then and the chanting of his name where I was must have drowned out any jeering.

He fully deserves any jeering. I’d have been happier to hear that around me than chanting his name like some kind of hero

 

[stw2022]

The basics have never been there. Never. Everyone was fine with it when he was young and had so much energy and youthful exuberance but those things are fine for a bit but then you need the fundamentals and he’s never had them.


A sign of that is how utterly relaxed most are when his performances are even worse when he’s asked to play on the right. A good wide player isn’t completely thrown by being asked to play on his last favourite side to the point where he almost looks like an amateur there. The normalisation of that as an excuse has always been astonishing to me. But it’s a sign that even his defenders (when they’re not egregiously making mental health diagnosis) deep down probably admit themselves he’s always lacked the basics and the fundamental building blocks of a top player

 

[carlbcfc]

Does anybody know what he done after the euros? Did he go on the piss, or did he just go home? What is his lifestyle like? Is he regularly seen out and about In bars?

 

[Green Arrow]

Does anybody know what he done after the euros? Did he go on the piss, or did he just go home? What is his lifestyle like? Is he regularly seen out and about In bars?

We all know he was playing with injuries for awhile and that has had an effect on his game. The charity work he has done off field has been amazing no one can deny that, maybe that has taken a toll on him no idea. I haven't read anything so far about him being out and about plus recently he has broken up with his girlfriend maybe that's been on his mind. However his performances have not been good at all for a ong time maybe taking him out of the limelight for a while will work.

 

[Walrus]

The rise of Rashford was always an interesting one. I don’t remember him being rated anywhere near as highly as the likes of Greenwood, Macheda or James Wilson. I - like a lot of people - was a bit surprised when he was handed his first team debut, but my word he certainly made the most of it.

What I am trying to say here is that I think there is a reasonable chance that Marcus just simply isn’t as good, and was never as good as he was perhaps made out to be. He had a couple of excellent seasons coming into the first team, but maybe that was just something of an extended purple patch - he wouldn’t be the first young footballer to have a wonder season or two and then fade into mediocrity.

 

[youmeletsfly]

His form has been really baffling because when he first came back from surgery against Leicester and scored a really well taken goal, he appeared to be flying again and we are certain to see him back to his very best. Instead he has morphed to this out of sorts, not interested type. I’m not one to read into body language but it worries me. Maybe he’ll come out one day and talk about it

If you remember well, he scored a nice one vs Leicester but was totally wank for the whole game.

It's a question of intelligence, talent and sheer will. He's average at all of them and will be an average player for his whole career. And I'am sorry, he was never "flying", he averages 10 goals a season in the EPL and he's on 200/250K a week.

I hope to see the day when people will be objective about United players, especially over rated English ones.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

The racial abuse thing was very recent and he’s had a face like a smacked arse for way longer than that and even if it was a thing, guys like Saka got it just as bad and have gone from strength to strength and Rashford is meant to be a social campaigner whose used to receiving a lot of vitriol for skin colour and background so I don’t buy the fact that is what is upsetting him.

More likely to be the ego inflation, Ronaldo arrival, playing through injury and girlfriend issue. Lots of factors at play here but the workrate has been an issue for a long time... ever since he believed into the hype that he’s the next Ronaldo.

It’s a shame because that workrate he had was what made him special and abit different to your Neymar Mbappe superstar types... he seemed like the type of player who Klopp and Pep would appreciate for his off the ball work but it’s completely gone out of his game.

Recent? It was half a year ago now.

And the England disappointment may have had an effect. Not only Shaw Maguire Sancho Rashford but even Harry Kane hasnt looked same player this season.

He's having a really bad time of it. There's no denying it. But the way people are talking I think they need to go back and look at some of the stuff he's done for us. Rashford is a much better player than we are currently seeing. He will come again I'm sure of it.

 

[MiceOnMeth]

Maybe Newcastle will try to sign him for 100 mil.

 

[harms]

Strange he’s out of confidence after we hire a psychologist to address these problems

We’ll, this is the one thing that isn’t strange at all about this situation — it’s not a pill that you can take to instantly make you better, it’s a process that takes a lot of time & effort.

 

[Adam-Utd]

First 15/20 minutes I thought he was looking back to his best. He was taking on his man, getting crosses and shots away and generally looking dangerous.

Then for some reason he got a bit lost in the game and his head went down, and he never recovered from that point.

Clearly has some mental demons going on right now, he just doesn't look happy and full of energy like he used to.

 

[Stevondo8]

If ever a player needed a goal, it’s this lad right now.

 

[Walrus]

I think he doesn't want to play football anymore. Maybe he finds it meaningless compared to his other work? He really looks like he is mentally not on the pitch.

I can believe that. Had the same thing when I used to work in a phone shop, and it hits you that what you are doing really doesn’t fecking matter in the grand scheme of things. Rashford seems like someone who genuinely cares about his social/off-the-pitch work, maybe he has just come to realise that that stuff is far more important than football will ever be.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

You’d start to worry if there was a psycho-somatic element to the injuries. A young footballer who hit a plateau in his development and started looking for reasons why he wasn’t finding football as easy as it once was.

Because the time out has made no discernible difference to how he’s playing. Still losing all his physical battles, easily brushed off the ball. If you’d watched him so far this season you would accept the idea that he’s struggling with the same chronic back and ankle injuries that were attributed to his poor form last season.

 

[Telsim]

No point in keeping him any longer - ship him in the summer. Plenty of other players available for his position.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I hope he's alright. This isn't just down to being out of form for me, it looks like he has completely lost interest or there are things wrong somewhere.

 

[Ash_G]

First 15/20 minutes I thought he was looking back to his best. He was taking on his man, getting crosses and shots away and generally looking dangerous.

Then for some reason he got a bit lost in the game and his head went down, and he never recovered from that point.

Clearly has some mental demons going on right now, he just doesn't look happy and full of energy like he used to.

I thought if you were looking at the early performance yesterday in isolation and without the context of how he's been playing for last few seasons then there was some bright sparks in how he was positive and running at people however I personally didn't think he was looking to cross the ball unless he really had no option to get a shot off and therefore hung on to the ball for too long.

In the context of how he has been playing I thought it was much of the same in that to me his mentality is that he's only interested if he thinks he can score. I know a lot of people are pointing at mental health issues (and I hope it's not that as I wouldn't want that for anyone) but that seems odd to me as I think as soon as he thinks he's in with a chance he gets very active so it's not like he's completely disinterested, he just seems to have developed this very narrow focussed view of his game. As the game went on as you say he definitely became even more head down. However I really don't know anything about mental health issues!

I've said it elsewhere but I just don't think it's sustainable for us or him. To play the way he does you really have to deliver as the team need to carry you and therefore you need to earn the right to be carried which he hasn't. In the context of our team it really doesn't work as Greenwood is also quite selfish in how he plays (although I think more active than Rashford is), Bruno is a high risk player and Ronaldo is Ronaldo. That attack with each players respective mentality, rather than ability, is not a recipe for success and in terms of allowing us to control a game I think that puts more burden on the midfielders than even better players than the ones we have would struggle with.

 

[::sonny::]

 

[Corridor of Uncertainty]

A campaigner first, an athlete second, a footballer....fifth?

 

[romufc]

He is one of the most frustrating footballers. I said it yesterday, his social media posts actually mean nothing.

I wouldn't believe anything he says on his socials because its all BS. After every defeat he comes out with we need to be better.

When you see him on the pitch, it is as if he doesn't want to be there, he can't do anything right on the pitch.

I can accept players out of form however; that does not mean you dont give it your all. Rashford's body language is pathetic. He needs to be dropped for a while until he can fix his attitude.

 

[Patchbeard]

The rise of Rashford was always an interesting one. I don’t remember him being rated anywhere near as highly as the likes of Greenwood, Macheda or James Wilson. I - like a lot of people - was a bit surprised when he was handed his first team debut, but my word he certainly made the most of it.

What I am trying to say here is that I think there is a reasonable chance that Marcus just simply isn’t as good, and was never as good as he was perhaps made out to be. He had a couple of excellent seasons coming into the first team, but maybe that was just something of an extended purple patch - he wouldn’t be the first young footballer to have a wonder season or two and then fade into mediocrity.

This is pretty much my opinion of him. James Wilson for example looked a more accomplished player at youth level, but was also quite unlucky with injuries around when he could've broken through which seemed to affect his pace. If Wilson's impressive first start had been with a few months to go in a season like Rashfords was (rather than the final day of the season for Wilson) then maybe he would've got some more starts like Rashford did that season and have become a first teamer, but it didn't work out for him. Whereas Rashford went on to have a promising few months and cemented himself as a future first team player, albeit he looked very raw with his decision making. But he was young and better decision making would come with age and experience right? Right?!

Yet here we are, 6 years later, and he still has fecking atrocious decision making in the final third.

 

[Adam-Utd]

I thought if you were looking at the early performance yesterday in isolation and without the context of how he's been playing for last few seasons then there was some bright sparks in how he was positive and running at people however I personally didn't think he was looking to cross the ball unless he really had no option to get a shot off and therefore hung on to the ball for too long.

In the context of how he has been playing I thought it was much of the same in that to me his mentality is that he's only interested if he thinks he can score. I know a lot of people are pointing at mental health issues (and I hope it's not that as I wouldn't want that for anyone) but that seems odd to me as I think as soon as he thinks he's in with a chance he gets very active so it's not like he's completely disinterested, he just seems to have developed this very narrow focussed view of his game. As the game went on as you say he definitely became even more head down. However I really don't know anything about mental health issues!

I've said it elsewhere but I just don't think it's sustainable for us or him. To play the way he does you really have to deliver as the team need to carry you and therefore you need to earn the right to be carried which he hasn't. In the context of our team it really doesn't work as Greenwood is also quite selfish in how he plays (although I think more active than Rashford is), Bruno is a high risk player and Ronaldo is Ronaldo. That attack with each players respective mentality, rather than ability, is not a recipe for success and in terms of allowing us to control a game I think that puts more burden on the midfielders than even better players than the ones we have would struggle with.

Unfortunately he seems to have slipped into some really weird habits.

We've been far too complacent with him, all this 'united way' and being an untouchable youth academy player has allowed him to regress.

He seems more interested in being a show pony, beating his man with tricks and then doing it again. I don't think it helps though that for a while we've not played with a proper striker, so he's not used to actually putting in a cross quickly.

I don't think hope is lost for him yet though, he just needs to get his mental side right. Once he realises he's lost this undroppable status and works with a proper coach he will get back to the basics.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

A campaigner first, an athlete second, a footballer....fifth?

What you've done with your life?

 

[captaincantona]

No point in keeping him any longer - ship him in the summer. Plenty of other players available for his position.

Like who?

 

[Corridor of Uncertainty]

What you've done with your life?

Keep defending the indefensible.

 

[K Stand Knut]

He is certainly not ready, Rashford was poor but he was better than Elanga. Granted Elanga only had 10 minutes but the comparison is a bit silly.

Is this a serious opinion?

I must have watched another game last night. Elanga beat his man more times in 10 minutes than Rashford did in over an hour.

 

[UncleBob]

First 15/20 minutes I thought he was looking back to his best. He was taking on his man, getting crosses and shots away and generally looking dangerous.

Then for some reason he got a bit lost in the game and his head went down, and he never recovered from that point.

Clearly has some mental demons going on right now, he just doesn't look happy and full of energy like he used to.

What?

 

[Cassidy]

Is this a serious opinion?

I must have watched another game last night. Elanga beat his man more times in 10 minutes than Rashford did in over an hour.

Yes you must have watched another game because Rashford beat his man plenty in the first half, so that isn't true

 

[Ash_G]

Unfortunately he seems to have slipped into some really weird habits.

We've been far too complacent with him, all this 'united way' and being an untouchable youth academy player has allowed him to regress.

He seems more interested in being a show pony, beating his man with tricks and then doing it again. I don't think it helps though that for a while we've not played with a proper striker, so he's not used to actually putting in a cross quickly.

I don't think hope is lost for him yet though, he just needs to get his mental side right. Once he realises he's lost this undroppable status and works with a proper coach he will get back to the basics.

Yeah I think he has not been managed well at all. Clearly we don't know what happens behind the scenes but I don't think Rashford is allowed to play the way he has down for other big teams and I think he has been indulged.

My concern is that we have too many players who have a reasonably large issue in their play and that we can't cover them all at the same time. Whatever needs to be done to get Rashford to change his game isn't a quick fix and I just can't see how you can do that with him and at the same time try to develop Greenwood (who's in danger of going down the same path) and accommodate Bruno and his high risk style. Add to that Ronaldo who needs teams to carry him to an extent, Cavani who isn't going to create his own chances and Sancho who also needs time to adapt (although for different reasons). It's just a horrible blend of players who's individual weaknesses are compounded when put together as a collective.

 

[Maagge]

I think it's a mental thing at this stage. He doesn't look switched on or whatever you wanna call it.
I think he needs some time out of the team to get his head right, this isn't just a football issue, I don't think.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

Keep defending the indefensible.

It's almost like him being an amazing person is now being used against him. Incredible how pathetic some people are. We should be proud of him not slaughtering him for it.

And his form will come back. He's not washed up at 24.

What's your biggest achievement in life mate? You got an MBE? You played for England and United. You scored nearly 100 goals for United? Nah didn't think so.

He's one of our own. We support him. That's our job.

 

[OL29]

He's one of our own. We support him. That's our job.

You’re not wrong but it’s laughably hypocritical coming from you who routinely shits on other players.