Marcus Rashford has given a ‘one-word verdict’ to Ruben Amorim, who famously called him ‘lazy’. But the Manchester United man has done something startling to those who have a weird agenda.
Lazy journalism
One common theme in football reporting throughout this winter was the faux shock at Marcus Rashford turning up to Manchester United training despite it being literally part of his well-paid job.
It is important to point out that at no stage during his interminable exit from the club did Rashford fail to do so when fit. But that did not prevent the media reporting on his continued attendance at Carrington as if it was even vaguely newsworthy or indeed new.
And not even joining Aston Villa on loan can stop this narrative freight train, as shown by this opening paragraph in The Sun:
‘MARCUS RASHFORD insisted on TRAINING on his first day-off at Aston Villa as he looks to hit the ground running at his new club.’
He did WHAT? He ‘insisted on TRAINING’?! On a scheduled day off with his new club and manager whom he will be overly keen to impress? Marcus Rashford? The famous work-shy fop? That can’t be right.
Someone needs more TRAINING if they reckon that hyphen is okay. But the next line unfortunately reveals a great deal more about author Graeme Bryce than it does Rashford or indeed anyone else:
‘The former England striker was criticised as lazy, by his former boss Ruben Amorim who accused him of not putting enough effort into training or matches during his time at Manchester United.’
A couple of things:
1) Unless his international retirement has passed Mediawatch by, 27-year-old Rashford with his 60 caps is not yet a ‘former England striker’.
2) Ruben Amorim at absolutely no stage has ever called Rashford lazy, at least publicly. Bryce seems to know this and thus did not use quote marks despite them being bandied around everywhere in football journalism nowadays, but in that case you cannot simply write in such a matter-of-fact way that this is something Amorim has done.
Amorim did call out Rashford for not doing “the maximum” in “every detail” of training and even “life”. But that is specifically not the same thing as being lazy, which is still a word the coach has not used. Amorim has said a great many things about Rashford, the most recent of which was that he “couldn’t get Marcus to see the way you’re supposed to play football and to train the way I see it”. The coach has not been overly complimentary of the player, certainly, but this is based on the Portuguese’s own exacting standards.
Never was Rashford ‘criticised as lazy by his former boss Ruben Amorim’. He has been criticised as lazy by Paul Parker but you need TRAINING if you think that carries even nearly the same heft.
Let’s get this parting started
It is weird that some feel a need to twist Amorim’s words because the man is already pretty quotable. It’s not even a month since he said they were “being the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United”.
Yet the Daily Mirror website are for whatever reason compelled to pretend ‘Ruben Amorim sends parting message to Marcus Rashford and admits he’s relieved he’s gone’.
The only quote used in the story is this:
“Like we said before, we are fighting for our jobs until the summer and I am just focused on these games. Thankfully Marcus is in Birmingham now with Unai, so you can take these questions this month to another coach. We are just focused on our players.”
And from that it is fairly obvious that any Amorim ‘relief’ at Rashford leaving is based mainly on the idea that the assembled journalists will now have to come armed with different questions. He’s in for a shock – they will now just ask him for a judgement on how Rashford is doing at Villa instead – but that is a frankly abysmal ‘parting message’.
Word life
Perhaps Amorim and Rashford have more in common than they initially assumed because this is atrociously misleading from the Daily Mirror website too:
‘Marcus Rashford has one-word verdict after Ruben Amorim’s second brutal decision’
And really the joke is on anyone who clicked thinking it wouldn’t be Rashford replying to PSV signing Tyrell Malacia on loan by posting “Twinnyyyyy” with two heart emojis. Obviously.
The opening paragraph claims ‘Marcus Rashford sent a message to Ruben Amorim,’ which he absolutely didn’t unless ‘Ruben Amorim’ actually means ‘Tyrell Malacia’ in Dutch.
The fifth paragraph says Rashford ‘has now appeared to stick the boot into Amorim after hailing Malacia’s switch to the Dutch side,’ which he absolutely didn’t unless showing support for his friend is equivalent to ‘sticking the boot into’ someone else (which it isn’t).
The seventh paragraph states Rashford was ‘referencing that they had both secured moves away from United,’ which is fine unless you do some cursory research to find the pair are incredibly close and Rashford has referred to Malacia as ‘twinnyyyyy’ or a variation thereof in past social media posts, one of which was before Amorim even managed his first Manchester United game when Malacia returned from injury in an EFL Trophy game in November.
Mediawatch has already wasted far too much time on daft pedantry (for a change) but it surely shouldn’t be too much to ask that words and their definitions actually matter a little bit, even with ‘one-word verdicts’.
MORE ON RASHFORD AND MANCHESTER UNITED FROM F365
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Stanley cup
Confirmation of that being a perennially lost battle comes as soon as the MailOnline‘s homepage is loaded up and we are greeted with this leading opening paragraph headline:
‘Tottenham are branded ‘horrendous’ and ‘worse than Accrington’ as they’re torn apart by Sky pundits Redknapp and Carragher after their 4-0 capitulation against Liverpool’
The standfirst shouts ‘SPURS ‘WORSE THAN STANLEY”, which is an unexpected boost to the stock of Kubrick but also again just something which no-one has said.
Jamie Carragher did say Accrington “gave more trouble to Liverpool than Tottenham tonight” but… That. Is. Not. The. Same. Thing.
Don’t put something in quote marks if no-one has said it. It seems straightforward.
Release me
Massive fan of the MailOnline sexing up news of Matheus Cunha’s release clause thus:
‘Revealed: Matheus Cunha’s eight-figure release clause after he signed new Wolves deal amid interest from Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham’
Cue widespread shock at Wolves neither leaving themselves open to losing their best player for £9.9m, nor pricing clubs out of a move for a player who is absolutely not worth £100m.
That ‘eight-figure release clause’ is ever so mysterious. What a shame Sami Mokbel’s exclusive about a £62m release clause is rather undermined by colleague Jeorge Bird writing five days prior that ‘it is understood that Cunha’s new deal includes a release clause of £62.5million, which will be active from the summer’.
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