Marcus Rashford - signed on loan (injured - out for season?)

[Dave]

The reason he has become available is that Amorim has been told to get rid of him and Casemiro in order to get the wage bill down and also when talking to possible new arrivals the agents can’t use their wages as what will be required.

I wish that were true, Fred. Rashford's problems are extremely well documented and I don't doubt for a second that Amorim would prefer to have a striker at the club rather than having to play Kobbie Mainoo as a false 9. Maybe he wants to get himself sacked.

He's got strikers, he picked Mainoo over Zirkzee and Hoilund against Palace.

Maybe Amorim just isn't as good as it looked like he might be?

Ha! And there was me thinking you knew a thing or two about football. I'm delighted they have Zirkzee and Hoilund, neither would make our bench and you're being very generous to call them strikers. Their recruitment has been shocking for years, long may it continue. They really have been stitched up by the Glazers, if it was any other club I'd feel sorry for the fans.

I appreciate that you have too much emotionally invested in Amorim now to entertain the possibility that he might not turn out to be the second coming of Christ.

Playing your defensive midfielder up front only looks clever if it works, not if you slip meekly to a 2-0 home defeat to Crystal Palace. Particularly if it happens on the day that you're shipping out a player that's scored 138 goals for you to a club higher up the league, because you haven't been good enough to get him playing.

He's currently on fewer points per game than any Man Utd manager since Dave Sexton. He might turn it around and get them moving, but he wouldn't be the first promising manager to excel at a lower level and fall short when stepping up a level.

[Drummond]

To be fair, that's such a basket case of a club, with utterly scumbag owners and strange investors and operators, that it's going to be very difficult to turn it around without wholesale changes from top to bottom. I hope it takes a very, very long time.

[kippaxvilla2]

Worst change of ownership since Doctor Tony Uber.

[Dave]

To be fair, that's such a basket case of a club, with utterly scumbag owners and strange investors and operators, that it's going to be very difficult to turn it around without wholesale changes from top to bottom. I hope it takes a very, very long time.

Agreed on all counts. But there are small things you can do in the short term - like not playing Kobbie Mainoo up front.

[Smithy]

One of my closest friends is one of them. Glory hunting Gavin we call him but he has had a season ticket for over 20 years and Rashford is his all time favourite player and he's gutted that it's come to this. He's of the opinion that it's 50/50 as for who's to blame but he blames the club 100% for not dealing with it and allowing the situation to come to this. Oh and he's met him at a charity event and he's a thoroughly decent and charming person.

The two Man Utd fans I know are of almost exactly the same opinion.  Great player, hasn't been the best recently, but successive managers have failed to get the best out of him - which they have to also take blame for.  Though one was a bit more industrial language adding that "he can fuck off now he's gone to you lot".

The reality is it HASN'T gone well at Man Utd the last two years, and he probably should have left last summer when the club was briefing he was available. But he didn't leave, and it's likely we're going to be the beneficiaries of that.

I still maintain there is a large portion of the country's fan base that doesn't like him purely because of his political positions outside of football, rather than anything he's done (or hasn't done) on the pitch.  He could score a 7 or 8 goals before the end of the season, but if you're of the "woke is evil" "BLM are terrorists" mindset, then the likelihood is you'd probably still want him nowhere near your team.

[The Edge]

The Talksport Man United fanclub Alex Crook was slagging off Rashford and the move asking if Amorim is stupid to Jim White - White said no.  However, playing Mainoo up front is a touch of genius none of us are even qualified to understand nor should we.

We're not worthy.

[kippaxvilla2]

He is supposed to be one of the most incrediblest, magnificent young managers in the world yet has not been able to get a single tune out of the players he inherited.  Pretty much what every new manager inherits - see Glasner at Palace, see Moyes at Everton, see the bloke at Wolves even, see Emery at Villa. 

He cannot just keep rocking up to press conferences saying the players are shit and the team is the worst in their history and expect no one to notice that he has done nothing to change things in fact is worse than his predecessor at this point.

[Drummond]

He is supposed to be one of the most incrediblest, magnificent young managers in the world yet has not been able to get a single tune out of the players he inherited.  Pretty much what every new manager inherits - see Glasner at Palace, see Moyes at Everton, see the bloke at Wolves even, see Emery at Villa. 

He cannot just keep rocking up to press conferences saying the players are shit and the team is the worst in their history and expect no one to notice that he has done nothing to change things in fact is worse than his predecessor at this point.

Yeah but he has a system..... 

[Dave]

I did a quick check of Rashford / Amorim's shared time together.

Amorim's first game, away to Ipswich - Rashford starts, 1-1, Rashford scores
Bodo Glimt - dropped to the bench, plays the last 30 minutes, Man Utd win 3-2
Everton - Rashford plays 90 minutes, scores twice, Man Utd win 4-0
Arsenal - Rashford dropped to the bench, plays the last 30 minutes, Man Utd lose 2-0
Forest - Rashford dropped to the bench, plays the last 30 minutes, Man Utd lose 3-2 (already losing 3-1 when he comes on)
Plzen - Rashford starts, subbed just before an hour, Man Utd win 2-1 (both goals coming after Rashford is subbed)

So he must have REALLY done something shocking in that first hour against Plzen to never be considered for selection again, given he was doing absolutely fine whenever he was called upon in the earlier matches.

And I wonder how jolly I'd be in training if I kept being dropped each time I'd played well.

[Brend'Watkins]

To be fair, that's such a basket case of a club, with utterly scumbag owners and strange investors and operators, that it's going to be very difficult to turn it around without wholesale changes from top to bottom. I hope it takes a very, very long time.

That's where the problem is.  They had an asset worth £100M+ 2 years ago that's now £40M max. They're stewardship of that asset has seen its value fall over that 2 years.  Digging your heels in is fine if the player responds in the way you hope.  If he doesn't, then you need to change your stance. I do get the feeling that as he was paid so much there was a great resentment to Rashford in the boardroom when he wasn't delivering on the pitch which is understandable.  There's a lot of egos in boardrooms and I would bet that someone has spoke their mind ( Ratcliffe?) to Rashford instead of identifying where the issues are. Not throwing the correct amount of resource at the problem to protect their asset I don't understand.

[john2710]

Rashford is a convenient scapegoat to cover a whole clusterfuck of issues at Man Utd & the press are only too happy to lap it up. I think Ratcliffe & his treatment of staff there will have sickened Rashford to the point that he lost all respect for the club. They have been on a spiral downwards for a decade which is now accelerating.

[Brazilian Villain]

Rashford is a convenient scapegoat to cover a whole clusterfuck of issues at Man Utd & the press are only too happy to lap it up. I think Ratcliffe & his treatment of staff there will have sickened Rashford to the point that he lost all respect for the club. They have been on a spiral downwards for a decade which is now accelerating.

Just wait till he hears about Heck.

[ChicagoLion]

The problem with Amorim he has a set way of playing, yet he does not have the players to play his way. Emery for example came in and worked out the best way to get the most out of his players. The next issue is they don’t have the capacity to fundamentally change the squad to adopt to his method.
It’s a glorious shit show.

[Dave]

The problem with Amorim he has a set way of playing, yet he does not have the players to play his way. Emery for example came in and worked out the best way to get the most out of his players. The next issue is they don’t have the capacity to fundamentally change the squad to adopt to his method.
It’s a glorious shit show.

You'd think that they'd have considered whether the squad was suitable for Amorim's requirements before paying huge amounts of money to get him.

I'd also have thought that given Rashford's preference is to play high up the pitch as a wide forward cutting in from the left, surely Amorim's 4-3-3 is pretty much tailor-made for him to do that. As as above, he seemed to be doing it fine when Amorim was picking him.

[cdbearsfan]

Nothing but trouble, send him back.

https://bsky.app/profile/avfcthereligion.bsky.social/post/3lhf6566joi2z