I love Rashy, but he's not a center forward. He's a left winger and always will be. If Højlund doesn't work out or gets injured then we are in big, big trouble. Someone in another thread wrote that we have an xG of almost 7 in the last two games, but only 1 goal. Worrying stuff.
10
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 43
- Goals
- 8
- Assists
- 5
- Yellow cards
- 2
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
We had the likes of Rooney and Tevez who work their arse off, no matter where they played. Then we have players who only put in effort when played in their favorite positions.
But Rashford doesn’t even put in any effort, or show any desire or passion, half the time he‘s playing in his favoured LW position.
He’s like a dead weight, drifting through games, occasionally bursting into life and doing what he does best.
The unforgivable, off the ball lethargy should be stamped on by ETH.
His 17 league goal tally last season was vital and the saving grace that got us to 3rd and a UCL spot, but we are not going to win anything, or challenge for titles, with part time, half-assed players being considered our best assets.
He is just as lazy on the LW when it comes to pressing.
Nope, just most people expecting him to regress to the mean as far as production a bit and the overall game of Mitoma is simply better.
If you still don't see he is just a PR machine and not a football player, what games are you watching?
I'm seriously annoyed at the fact people are still surprised he is not bothered to run and follow the manager's instructions.
Just imagine him under a manager with fecking balls like Pep or Klopp, he'd rot on the bench. Or maybe there is pressure on ETH from upstairs because Marcus is the local posterboy for the club, have no idea, but weird he is not putting in the effort and still plays.
I'm seriously annoyed at the fact people are still surprised he is not bothered to run and follow the manager's instructions.
Just imagine him under a manager with fecking balls like Pep or Klopp, he'd rot on the bench. Or maybe there is pressure on ETH from upstairs because Marcus is the local posterboy for the club, have no idea, but weird he is not putting in the effort and still plays.
Back to 2020-2021 "feck off everything is against me, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeef, oh for fecks sake" mode then. Sigh
This.
I understand he likes playing as a LW, but he's still an attacker, no way he can't play at least a little bit better when he plays as a CF. Then again, I remember his interview with Gaz when he said he tends to lose patience when he plays there, so the answer may lie in his attitude - he preffers getting the ball when he's got an open space in front of him than to work his ass off fighting for an open position when he's in the middle.
I mean, if someone was a classic, old-school striker, it was Ole, but even he played a RW for some time when Becks got injured, and he was pretty good actually.
I'm guessing you didn't watch him last season then.
Neither of them played as the lone center forward and Rooney in particular had his worst games when he was asked to lead the line and not drop deeper to get on the ball. People on this very forum were calling him an instinctive yet tactically limited player.
Technical requirements of strikers has also changed since Ferguson's days. Ten hag would sooner lose his temper if Rashford kept popping up deeper in midfield or onto the wing just to get on the ball.
This is probably the only club in the country that year after year does nothing to address the problem and makes it worse by playing its best attacker out of position.
Him saying he didn't like playing centre forward in the Overlap interview was so stupid. Gives the media plenty of fodder, increases pressure on himself and makes it look like there's an issue between him and the manager.
Rooney scored something like 40 goals when he was eventually put up front on his own regularly.
The problem is that a lot of players either don't want to put in the effort required to even try when asked to play out of position or they just don't have the brains to adapt. In Rashford's case I'd say it's a combination of both.
Shocked at how much he has let his head drop playing as a CF.
He knows its only a short term thing, before Hojlund starts, so why not give it his all?
He knows its only a short term thing, before Hojlund starts, so why not give it his all?
I am not worried about Rashford. Soon as Højlund plays and Rashford is back in his favoured position he will be great again.
Are we all pretending that Rashford pressed very well even in his preferred LW position? I see no differences with his off the ball efforts
At least not great at pressing or passing the ball.. Can't wait to see him try to run through the defenders!
He is only great when United plays counter attacking.
Get him back on the left wing immediately.
His hold up play is atrocious. I've never once seen him win a long ball. He either jumps way too early, gets outjumped by the defender, or doesn't jump at all. He doesn't find the right spaces and he tries to beat a man when a pass would be be the better decision. He then inevitably loses it, and then fails to track back, or does it halfheartedly. The sooner Hojlund is fit and up front the better.
Yeah, not sure about that. Rashford is lazy. That's just the way of things. Ronaldo kept making defensive runs to bail Rashford out of trouble - that is saying something. Rashford may cover some distance during a match, but he lacks intensity. In fact, his whole body language lacks intensity. Not many of our players have that intensity in their game, tbf, but he's a massive part of why we struggle in certain games.
I'm not lashing out against him. He's a good, can be great, player, but he has some weaknesses.
It's the eternal Rashford question, isn't it.
I remember another one of his quotes from the time when he was 19 or 20. He said he knows tracking back and helping the team defensively is his weakness. But he did just that, acknowledged it and basically laughed it off, like "oh well, whatcha gonna do."
Half a decade later and here we are, people still going on about it.
He'll never be that team player. Let's hope he'll at least come close to his last season's performances in terms of goals. If not, then Ole/Rangnick times are ahead again.
has his new contract so we can all feck off now
Yeah. I hope that isn't the reason his form has dropped off. Playing for his contract new contract.
Very true. His body language is what is shocking. He presses intermittently but between then he just walks around and looks completely disinterested.
I wonder if he’s trying to conserve energy, but the players these days are extremely fit and it’s their job to be.
Fingers crossed his performances pick up when he’s back on the wing.
His effort levels are really disappointing. In the clips above there's a stark contrast between Rashford's intensity and his teammates'. He doesn't need to constantly bust a lung off the ball, like Rooney or Tevez, but the least he could do is show some intensity in his pressing. Especially since it is an integral facet of ETH's game plan.
I'm sure fans would be more appreciative of his efforts if he did that too. Most of the criticism seems to be centred around his work rate and attitude on the pitch.
I could be off here and I'm open to being corrected, but I could have sworn that Rashford had good work rate, when he burst onto the scene.
I've been saying it for a while now. Jose Mourinho said it 5/6 years ago. That Rashford isn't a natural centre-forward.
I love Rashford, my PM etc. But his centre forward game is average at best. Back to goal, his link-up and hold-up play is rubbish. I'd rather play a half-fit Martial up there who at least is more of a natural and can receive a pass and bring others into play..
We have seen over the years that Rashford is at his best on the left cutting in, facing forward (not back to goal) running into space behind defenders, utilising his devastating pace and powerful shooting.
His link up with the lefy-back can be very effective for the team too.
I love Rashford, my PM etc. But his centre forward game is average at best. Back to goal, his link-up and hold-up play is rubbish. I'd rather play a half-fit Martial up there who at least is more of a natural and can receive a pass and bring others into play..
We have seen over the years that Rashford is at his best on the left cutting in, facing forward (not back to goal) running into space behind defenders, utilising his devastating pace and powerful shooting.
His link up with the lefy-back can be very effective for the team too.
This is a major part of the reason we are so poor since Fergie left, we have let people become superstars too quickly without proving anything. This is part of the reason I don't want Garnacho getting number 7 or 11, etc. we give out these big contracts and status symbols that tell these player's they've made it and they don't have that same hunger. We need to bolster the squad with real quality so even players like Rashford and Bruno have fear for their places and fight accordingly every single game to be the best they can be for the team.
Rashford could retire tomorrow while Mitoma could play on for another ten seasons and he would not get close to Rashford's career goals and assists.
That's always been the conventional wisdom. I wonder though. Last season, he started 15 PL games as a center forward, and scored 7 goals in those games. That can't be very different from his scoring rate starting as a left forward.
He cannot possibly have had an xG anywhere near 7 in the first two games. That's more than the entire team. And if he'd had that, it'd make me extremely optimistic rather than worried.
No, that's for the whole team. My point is that we are highly inefficient in front of goal. I don't have much faith in Antony, Garnacho and Sancho if I'm being honest. Bruno's role has changed a bit, so he's our main chance creator. We are 100% dependent on Rashford scoring at least 20 PL goals. Preferably more.
Højlund hitting the ground running could take some of the burden off Rashford's shoulders though.
According to OPTA, we had 2.2 against Wolves and 2.1 against Spurs. Rashford's part of that was 0.4 in each game.
Yeah, when he scored 3-4 goals from February till the end of the season? feck me he played decent for 2 seasons out of 7 and he deserves 400k/week to not be bothered to fecking run and press?
Wake the feck up.
Could just as well put Sancho or anyone else as forward. No point playing Rashford anywhere but LW. Makes no sense having our supposedly most dangerous player playing out of position to accomodate worse players.
Well if that's true then I was bamboozled by the other poster. 1 goal in 4.3 is also pretty bad though.
I'm not singling out Rashford's finishing in the first two games. In fact, my biggest issue was him disappearing. Probably because he didn't play in his best position.
Did anyone argue that or are you strawmanning?
Agreed 100%.
There are different XG figures from different sources, calculated in different ways. Not sure why or how. However, the other one I know about (Understat) isn't much different - 4.43 for the two games combined. They've got Rashford's xG at 1.08 though.
No question that 1 goal from that xG is meagre indeed. So far, last season's trouble persists in that regard. And no, Rashford didn't have great games.
My point was more that I'm not so sure that's an obvious reflection of where he plays. His CF starts last season included two goal-games against Arsenal and Leicester, arguably two of his best performances of the year. And I find that he's generally not really that involved, wherever he plays. You see that in his stats too, in things like the number of touches he has and the number of passes he makes. His contribution really is defined a lot by the goals he scores, and arguably also by how he stretches defences by being a constant threat for runs in behind (which he does regardless of whether he plays CF or LF).
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The frustrating thing about Rashy is that everytime I watches him play, he seems like a very lazy player. The effort levels does not seem to be there and his head drops very easily. Does not seem to enjoy playing football for some reason. Really frustrating watch..
Has there been any statistical analysis on his work rate? Would be interested to see it if so
agree, he talks a good game imo watch that overlap video with gaz hes talking about the mental side of his game playing through the middle
This doesn't get said enough. Even in his best ever season there were huge chunks were he still looked fecking awful. The normalisation of the acceptance of this, as if it is a perfectly routine thing to happen to every top player, is insane.
There isn't a fan base in the world who would watch the tumescent shit this last has turned out most weeks in a red shirt fit the last three years and argue he's a top player because he sporadically has short bursts of form.
He's a decent, confidence-based player who if he's feeling up to it can contribute. But you're going to be lucky to get him motivated for more than 30% of the season. And if you ask him to adapt his game to suit an opponent, tactical instruction, to cover for a team mate or because it's what's requirement for the good of the team for the match - forget it.
His 'best position' is playing from the left, but unless he's had his Weetabix that morning or is feeling a bit glum, be prepared to have your full back massively exposed as when the team lose the ball as it's then that he suddenly remembers his injuries and can't track back.
fecking "XG". Do me a favour.
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