Why have we started playing Rashford on the right?

Red00012 said:
Manager defends players in breaking news.

Well I do it to prove my point, also going back to my point they are both good players on their day but Rashford’s overall match performance in the 90 mins have been poor lately .
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your point was that no one talks about Pogba and his fitness and Covid. Yet OGS spoke about it specifically tonight.
 
For me, Rashford, Cavani and Martial have to start. They are our best front 3. So in order to sort out their positions I would pick the quickest guy to play on the right. Then he can take the LB wide and look to cross when on the ball and make runs to the far post when the ball is coming from the other side. On the left, I'd put my best dribbler. A guy who can come inside and be hard to disposes. And up front, I'd play my best #9. So with that being said, it seems an obvious choice to play Martial on the left, Cavani #9 and Rashford on the right. And one thing I know for sure is that if someone is questioning why this is happening, then it makes me even happier to know that TheCaf isn't running the team... :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Rashford has looked much better on the right in this recent spell than he did the few times he was tried there earlier. Not seeing the problem with playing him there, especially with Greenwood off color - it gets the three best attacking options on the pitch.

Rashford created the winner today from the right. He played a key role in the buildup to Martial's goal against Villa from the right. And if I'm not mistaken, he scored the winner against Wolves after moving to the right following Martial's introduction. It's working.

It helps that he's become much better at beating players from a standing start this season, and he's started to hold the width when he's on that side. Which creates more space for Fernandes and the striker, while Greenwood seems to get in their way and not offer much himself at this point.
 
We played the correct tactics vs the opposition tonight. Burnley were compact and frustrating, but we found the key to the lock and it wasn't pace tonight, just superior players.

Against teams who want to make an open match of it, the opportunity for a more dynamic front 3 will be there.
 
bosnian_red said:
To be honest I really like him on the right and it's a breath of fresh air. Was calling for it for a while too. He's been a bit hit and miss at times there, sure, but it makes sense for a lot of reasons.
  1. Cavani is clearly our best striker with the natural movement, aerial threat and experience, and we're at our best in a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1. Bruno is best as a #10. Martial can play either as a 9, or on the left, so if Cavani is in, Martial is worth playing on the left (would be a lot better if he was actually in form)
    1. Also allows us to use Pogba on the left wing if we don't want Martial there, while keeping our best hard working midfield trio in Bruno/Fred/McTominay
  2. On the right, we have literally nobody. Mata who can't really do it in the premier league much anymore can play the role, Dan James can play as a right winger but he's nowhere near the required level, and then Greenwood who is a 19 year old out of form striker playing out of position on the right.
  3. If Rashford doesn't play on the right wing, Wan Bissaka is tasked with handling the entire right wing. He can't do that. It's a really tough job, and he's not good enough going forward to handle the entire flank. Plus it then hurts him defensively as he gets out-numbered out there.
    1. Rashford playing on the right has improved Wan Bissaka loads, at both ends of the pitch. He's not getting doubled up on (as then Rashford will stretch the pitch and counter attack into the space), and going forward he is now an overlapping threat, not the entire threat.
    2. To add, Rashford is quite a good crosser of the ball and is capable of whipping it in from deep as well to pick out the runners on the other side.
  4. Probably the biggest point - so much of our build up now goes through the right but is also balanced on the left with Martial still more than capable out there (along with Shaw). It's a much better balanced team as we can build up the play on both sides (stretching the pitch, giving more space in the middle), with both full backs being used properly so it adds a lot more to us. It's no wonder we've become a lot more consistent at actually getting the results now, compared to the flawed team we had before.
No, it might not be Rashfords best position (though I think he has huge potential there and is far more unpredictable on the right). But our alternate options on the left are Martial and Pogba, while our alternate options on the right are Mata/Dan James/Greenwood. It's a world of difference there. It also brings a better level out of the rest, as first it stretches the pitch to open up space for Bruno or Pogba in the middle, while greatly helping out Wan Bissaka (and Shaw staying the same tactically, individually he's just been better for unrelated reasons IMO).
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This post says it all really.
 
Basically because neither he nor Martial can adequately lead the line as a striker. That has been proven ad nauseam. Cavani deserves plenty of starts up top. It’s then a question of who can play least bad on the right. That’s Rashford.
 
Greenwood is better on the right and Rashford on the left because using opposite feet to the side they are positioned causes them to invert their play with their movement.

Even though Sancho might not be the FOTM given Grealish's form, Sancho offers more to balancing the first team. We need a right winger, Martial should realistically drop to the bench (form related) with Rashford on the left. Heading into summer RW should be an absolute priority with a centre half.
 
bosnian_red said:
To be honest I really like him on the right and it's a breath of fresh air. Was calling for it for a while too. He's been a bit hit and miss at times there, sure, but it makes sense for a lot of reasons.
  1. Cavani is clearly our best striker with the natural movement, aerial threat and experience, and we're at our best in a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1. Bruno is best as a #10. Martial can play either as a 9, or on the left, so if Cavani is in, Martial is worth playing on the left (would be a lot better if he was actually in form)
    1. Also allows us to use Pogba on the left wing if we don't want Martial there, while keeping our best hard working midfield trio in Bruno/Fred/McTominay
  2. On the right, we have literally nobody. Mata who can't really do it in the premier league much anymore can play the role, Dan James can play as a right winger but he's nowhere near the required level, and then Greenwood who is a 19 year old out of form striker playing out of position on the right.
  3. If Rashford doesn't play on the right wing, Wan Bissaka is tasked with handling the entire right wing. He can't do that. It's a really tough job, and he's not good enough going forward to handle the entire flank. Plus it then hurts him defensively as he gets out-numbered out there.
    1. Rashford playing on the right has improved Wan Bissaka loads, at both ends of the pitch. He's not getting doubled up on (as then Rashford will stretch the pitch and counter attack into the space), and going forward he is now an overlapping threat, not the entire threat.
    2. To add, Rashford is quite a good crosser of the ball and is capable of whipping it in from deep as well to pick out the runners on the other side.
  4. Probably the biggest point - so much of our build up now goes through the right but is also balanced on the left with Martial still more than capable out there (along with Shaw). It's a much better balanced team as we can build up the play on both sides (stretching the pitch, giving more space in the middle), with both full backs being used properly so it adds a lot more to us. It's no wonder we've become a lot more consistent at actually getting the results now, compared to the flawed team we had before.
No, it might not be Rashfords best position (though I think he has huge potential there and is far more unpredictable on the right). But our alternate options on the left are Martial and Pogba, while our alternate options on the right are Mata/Dan James/Greenwood. It's a world of difference there. It also brings a better level out of the rest, as first it stretches the pitch to open up space for Bruno or Pogba in the middle, while greatly helping out Wan Bissaka (and Shaw staying the same tactically, individually he's just been better for unrelated reasons IMO).
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I was thinking of it more as a decent stopgap to fit in Cavani but you make a good argument for it and you're right. Its created more space on the left.
 
charlenefan said:
that's also an annoying aspect of it, theres not enough interchanging. Back in the Ronaldo days if he wasn't getting any joy on the right he'd move to the left and vica versa. Rashford only really moved to the left for any real period after we scored and it wasn't long after that he was subbed

obviously don't know if they're instructed to stay in their positions and not swap or not
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And Rashford looked more threatening (admittedly not hard) once he started to roam the pitch a bit more.
 
passing-wind said:
Greenwood is better on the right and Rashford on the left because using opposite feet to the side they are positioned causes them to invert their play with their movement.

Even though Sancho might not be the FOTM given Grealish's form, Sancho offers more to balancing the first team. We need a right winger, Martial should realistically drop to the bench (form related) with Rashford on the left. Heading into summer RW should be an absolute priority with a centre half.
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Greenwood on the right is better for the attack, Rashford on the right is better for the team because he helps AWB in tracking back and actually tried to look for AWB for the overlap whereas Greenwood's main option would be to dribble in to look for a pass/shot in the box and ignoring AWB's presence.
 
elmo said:
Greenwood on the right is better for the attack, Rashford on the right is better for the team because he helps AWB in tracking back and actually tried to look for AWB for the overlap whereas Greenwood's main option would be to dribble in to look for a pass/shot in the box and ignoring AWB's presence.
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I love Greenwood but he's just not very good on the right. He looks very out of place. He keeps possession and works hard, but it's all pretty much recycling the ball. It takes him away from the box, doesn't get the best out of his type of off the ball movement, he's not the best at doing any sort of wing play and the only possible benefit you get is the occasional time he can cut in and shoot from outside of the box, which is a low percentage play anyway. He's a striker and should play as one. Rashford on the right is just far better for our overall team, especially in the form Greenwood's in this season.
 
Because Greenwood form fell of a cliff and Dan James in simply not good enough.

So our best option to fulfill the front three is Cavani who's clearly a 9 and not a winger so he takes Martial's spot and then I can only guess Rashford is better than Martial on the right.

So basically we move all our front three because we don't have a good RW.
 
Answer: Martial is almost useless on the right most of the time.

Anyway, I think Ole wants the forward 3 to interchange positions a lot in matches. More difficult for defenders to track.
 
Greenwood is way superior technically to rashford but he’s a striker. Doesn’t have the raw kick and rush speed that rashford has on the right, and though he’s been terrible, can’t be worse than dan james
 
because we have Cavani, and Martial can play on the left

it kind of made sense but now Martial is out of form it doesn't

time for Greenwood to step up
 
Nothing wrong with trying things out. If it worked it would really help with the balance of our attack. And you can’t decide after one or two games, sometimes it takes a while to get used to a position. He definitely looks uncomfortable, but trying him out there makes sense. I’d only be worried if Ole kept playing him there for months on end even after it became apparent it wasn’t right for him.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Because it’s the only way to fit him Martial and Cavani in the same team. And they’re our best options up front. What’s the alternative?
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The problem is it doesnt help anyone. He is not that good on the right, Martials form is poor and then it leaves Cavani without service. It is not working and I rather bench Martial
 
Because for the first time in the last few years we can attack through both the wings, stretch the play and not be so easily predictable.

Still think we need to get a top RW so Rashford can move back to his original position but he's a fantastic stopgap till then.
 
No Spring Chicken said:
Nothing wrong with trying things out. If it worked it would really help with the balance of our attack. And you can’t decide after one or two games, sometimes it takes a while to get used to a position. He definitely looks uncomfortable, but trying him out there makes sense. I’d only be worried if Ole kept playing him there for months on end even after it became apparent it wasn’t right for him.
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Martial has played left wing for most of his time in United, and Rashford's played on the right lots of times too. It's not an experiement. We know how it works. And how it works is that Martial is a semi-effective left-winger, while Rashford is OK but not as good as he would be on the left. Also, he seems to play more like a conventional winger when he's on the right.
 
bosnian_red said:
To be honest I really like him on the right and it's a breath of fresh air. Was calling for it for a while too. He's been a bit hit and miss at times there, sure, but it makes sense for a lot of reasons.
  1. Cavani is clearly our best striker with the natural movement, aerial threat and experience, and we're at our best in a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1. Bruno is best as a #10. Martial can play either as a 9, or on the left, so if Cavani is in, Martial is worth playing on the left (would be a lot better if he was actually in form)
    1. Also allows us to use Pogba on the left wing if we don't want Martial there, while keeping our best hard working midfield trio in Bruno/Fred/McTominay
  2. On the right, we have literally nobody. Mata who can't really do it in the premier league much anymore can play the role, Dan James can play as a right winger but he's nowhere near the required level, and then Greenwood who is a 19 year old out of form striker playing out of position on the right.
  3. If Rashford doesn't play on the right wing, Wan Bissaka is tasked with handling the entire right wing. He can't do that. It's a really tough job, and he's not good enough going forward to handle the entire flank. Plus it then hurts him defensively as he gets out-numbered out there.
    1. Rashford playing on the right has improved Wan Bissaka loads, at both ends of the pitch. He's not getting doubled up on (as then Rashford will stretch the pitch and counter attack into the space), and going forward he is now an overlapping threat, not the entire threat.
    2. To add, Rashford is quite a good crosser of the ball and is capable of whipping it in from deep as well to pick out the runners on the other side.
  4. Probably the biggest point - so much of our build up now goes through the right but is also balanced on the left with Martial still more than capable out there (along with Shaw). It's a much better balanced team as we can build up the play on both sides (stretching the pitch, giving more space in the middle), with both full backs being used properly so it adds a lot more to us. It's no wonder we've become a lot more consistent at actually getting the results now, compared to the flawed team we had before.
No, it might not be Rashfords best position (though I think he has huge potential there and is far more unpredictable on the right). But our alternate options on the left are Martial and Pogba, while our alternate options on the right are Mata/Dan James/Greenwood. It's a world of difference there. It also brings a better level out of the rest, as first it stretches the pitch to open up space for Bruno or Pogba in the middle, while greatly helping out Wan Bissaka (and Shaw staying the same tactically, individually he's just been better for unrelated reasons IMO).
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completely agree
 
Because of Martial.

Cavani is better than Martial centrally.
Martial can only play on the left, Rashford is much better than Martial on the right.
All three are better than Greenwood or anybody else we could play instead of them.
 
Red00012 said:
We all have to get over this back injury he had 12 months ago. It’s still been used as an excuse. It’s funny how no one mentioned Pogba been out for 2 months last season and getting Covid this season as a reason for his poor form.
If he wasn’t match fit he wouldn’t have started pretty much every game since post lockdown without been subbed off .

I never said his goal return is poor I said his overall match performance isn’t what it should be.
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That’s exactly not what you said.
Red00012 said:
His competition has been Dan James. Let’s not make out Rashford has been elite Ronaldo on the left .

Doesn’t look like Pellestri or Diallo can play left either.

So we basically need a LW now inside of a RW
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We play Rashford on the right because neither Rashford or Martial can play CF as well as Cavani.

I’m probably in a minority but I feel Martial is a miles better football than Rashford in terms of hold-up play, technical ability, quick interplay around the area, dribbling in tight areas etc...

Rashford is quicker and more direct and did play wide right throughout his development in the Youth team so it kind of makes sense to me but we do need a proper AMR who can get us 15 goals from that position
 
11101 said:
Because of Martial.

Cavani is better than Martial centrally.
Martial can only play on the left, Rashford is much better than Martial on the right.
All three are better than Greenwood or anybody else we could play instead of them.
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Yeah, this. The answer is so obvious it’s weird that every single post isn’t a version of this one.
 
Samid said:
Didn’t Cavani play a lot on the right to accommodate Neymar/Mbappe?
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No, it's Mbappé that played on the right. Cavani played wide years ago when Ibrahimovic was PSG's focal point.
 
As a forward, he has the ability to play there and we have seen that before. Rashford has always been like this, he has games where he is non influential but has special moments.
 
noodlehair said:
Am I missing something here?

He's been one of our best players playing from the left for a year and a half now. We don't have anyone better than him to play there. In fact we don't appear to have anyone else who can even play there and look comfortable.

We're essentially moving our best forward out of position, in order to play someone else out of position, in his position.

Just smacks a bit of trying to complete a jigsaw by taking a correctly placed piece back out and trying to shoe horn it into a gap somewhere else. Has Rashford ever actually played well from the right?
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Yes he played well there pretty much every game except yesterday when he still got an assist!

quite obviously he's better on the left but Right side is still our glaring whole in the squad which is why Ole wanted Sancho - maybe Pellistri or Diallo will surprise us

James, Pogba and Martial all better from the left
 
Because we have nobody else that can play there apart from Greenwood. Not a difficult answer really.

I would prefer to keep our best players in their best positions though (Rashford left)...... However, I can see why Rashford has ended up being the one sacrificed a bit as his attitude is good.
 
Oranges038 said:
I think Ole wants him, Cavani and Martial as a front three, maybe in the hope that some of Cavani's movement might rub off on the other two. Whether it will work or not remains to be seen.

My view is that both he and Martial are too one dimensional in their approach, they want to cut inside all the time. They both lack significant football intelligence to understand the roles properly and I think they are incapable of transitioning over effectively because they think in their heads it's not their best position and aren't willing to knuckle down and just get on with it. How often are they seen just ambling around and not making effective runs? Or just standing there waiting for the ball. Or standing 30 yards from goal when the ball is out wide waiting to be crossed with only 1 player or no one in the box to meet it.

I don't see any reason why a professional footballer cannot operate on either up top, him and Martial should be able to fluidly swap over during games, even through all three forward positions. It's not like the wide positions are vastly different, he's not going from left wing to right back or centre midfield. It's playing on the wing in a bloody football match, does it really matter that much when you are on 100k+ a week which side it is your playing on. Yeah, he might be slightly better on the left, but he should be able to operate on both to a high level.
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Couldnt have put it better myslf. Well said. Surely during training matches ole has them trying all 3 parts lw cf rw.
 
I don't think he's bad but he's not comfortably there. I like his dribbling on the right but he won't score many goals as a right-winger, I tell you that.
 
dinostar77 said:
We signed two RW. Pellestri and Diallo. Just need to be patient. They will be in and around the first team next season.
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At their ages, their punts at best. I'm all for signing young talent, but we've had problems on our right side for years, and it was incredibly naive to think they wouldn't persist if we didn't sign a first team RW.
 
Mr Smith said:
At their ages, their punts at best. I'm all for signing young talent, but we've had problems on our right side for years, and it was incredibly naive to think they wouldn't persist if we didn't sign a first team RW.
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I dont disagree that its been a problem for years and should have beeen addressed a long time ago. I'm not convinced we will sign a RW now and that we will give Pellestri, Diallo and Greenwood (while hes still developing physically) chances on the right wing and hope that Pellestri or Diallo turn out to be the answer. I maybe wrong and Utd do buy an established RW amd give Pellestri and Diallo time to develop outside of the limelight.

Anyway im going off topic. Agree with most Rashford should stay on the left and martial should either be rotated with rashford and Cavani for the left wing and CF position. Also i would sell martial if i could get a good price for him. Cavani highlights all of Martials shortcomings at CF when he plays.
 
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