Gary Neville claims Manchester Untied pair Marcus Rashford and Casemiro should have stayed a little closer to home over the international break.
Rashford was seen at an NBA game between the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets in New York City last week, while Casemiro posted pictures of him with his family at Disney World in Orlando.
Neville wasn’t bothered by the optics of Rashford’s attire or that he “wants attention”, but was concerned by the Red Devils pair travelling so far ahead of Ruben Amorim’s first week in charge of the club.
“It comes with the territory when you’re this sort of player and stature,” Neville said when asked about the attention Marcus Rashford has received on the It’s Called Soccer! podcast.
“I’ve got very little sympathy for players who are the stars who are on huge money, huge commercial contracts, they want that attention, they need it as that’s what fuels them and makes them the great players what they are and that’s what gives them that adrenaline rush, they’re going to get more attention, so I’ve got no problem with that and the attention he gets.
“I’ve got no problem with him going away in the international break and I’ve got no problem with the clothes that he wears, he can wear whatever he wants, the only thing I would say, and I’m saying this very calmly as I don’t want a ‘Neville hammers Rashford’ to be honest with you, as I’m not hammering him.
“It’s been a very difficult period for the club and it’s been a very difficult period for Marcus Rashford. There was a player I used to play with that used to say, when times were tough that basically you go down to that extra level of detail in making sure everything’s perfect, you take the butter off your toast, you literally make sure you’re absolutely looking at every single 1% of detail you could.
“So I used to think standing in that tunnel, when going through a difficult time, I’d think ‘right I’ve got to work my way out of this, I’ve got to be absolutely perfect’. Every drink, every sleep, every training session, every stretch, has just got to be absolutely perfect.
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“So would I think the most relaxing way to spend your time, whether you’re Casemiro, and I’ll bring him into it, Casemiro is 30 odd years of age, Marcus Rashford is in his 20s, travelling 10 or 11 hours and I, to be fair, have done that quite a few times in the last few months, you get a bit of jet lag going to the US. So, a three, four day jet lag-based trip, when you’ve got basically the idea of training and making sure you’re fit, I don’t personally think it’s the right choice of distance and choice of destination.
“If the New York Knicks were playing three or four hours away, with a one-hour time difference I’d say go for your life. But I think personally, If I was looking at being absolutely perfect in myself, and I maybe took professionalism to an obsessive level, I wouldn’t be on a 10 hour flight to a different time zone that was potentially going to cause me more of a problem.
“Physically from a tiredness perspective, at particularly this point where a manager has just been sacked and we’re going through a tough time and all eyes are on us. I’d lie low and I’d go somewhere and rest. There are some Manchester United players who have gone away for the international break, and you don’t know where they’ve gone, but they’re the clever ones in my mind.”
