Marcus Rashford saying he is open to leaving Manchester United has boggled minds. Kyle Walker being ‘the game’s last genuine hardman’ is weirder still.
Walk the walk
Kyle Walker has been called a great many things over the years, many of which are not particularly publishable on these pages. But until Friday morning, Mediawatch was not aware that ‘the game’s last genuine hardman’ was ever among them.
Yet there is Andy Dillon, using his Sun column to express regret at the recent actions of an ‘uncompromising’ player who ruined his ‘dead hard’ reputation with that moment against Manchester United.
Have we missed something? Walker was a phenomenal player for ages but even at his best when was he ever a ‘big, bad’ defender whose theatrics represented the end of ‘the era of the tough-nut footballer’? Did he really ‘come across as the last bastion of sheer bs in the cosmopolitan, coiffured, cosy modern game’?
His ‘tough nuts’ and ‘sheer bs’ have very much been part of the problem recently.
I came in like a wrecking ball
The press pack finally secured their “big, big headlines” on Marcus Rashford when Ruben Amorim was asked one final question after two press conferences on Wednesday morning.
That sorted the back pages for Thursday but also set the agenda well into the future.
David Anderson of the Daily Mirror couldn’t care less that the coverage has superseded an actual Manchester United game; he practically brags about it.
‘Amorim was not asked a single question about facing Tottenham on Thursday night in the Carabao Cup or even the smash-and-grab derby win over Manchester City. Instead it was all about Rashford and his decision to lob him a handgrenade with the pin pulled out.’
You’re aware that makes you and your colleagues sound slightly incompetent? It’s a bit odd to point out that ‘Amorim was not asked a single question about facing Tottenham on Thursday night in the Carabao Cup or even the smash-and-grab derby win over Manchester City,’ when you yourself are in control of whether said questions are asked.
But then what else were journalists going to ask about when Rashford ‘has taken a flamethrower to their fledgling relationship’?
A reminder that the forward said “when I leave it’s going to be ‘no hard feelings’. You’re not going to have any negative comments from me about Manchester United,” and that “I’ve seen how other players have left in the past and I don’t want to be that person”.
You torch those bridges, Marcus.
But the weirdness continues, because Rashford’s ‘disciplinary record is not good’ (25 cards in 287 Premier League appearances, with one fine of two weeks’ wages almost a year ago) and ‘Reds legend Gary Neville branded him “unprofessional” for attending a New York Nicks NBA game during the last international break when Amorim had just taken over’.
Nope. Mediawatch dealt with this at the time: at no stage did Neville even use the word “unprofessional”, never mind brand Rashford as such.
And quite where Anderson gets the idea from that keeping Rashford ‘would take a wrecking ball to Amorim’s authority at Old Trafford’ is a mystery. A player has just expressed an openness to leaving his club. With admittedly limited wartime experience, a manager choosing whether to sanction that wish or keep working with an obviously talented footballer doesn’t sound like a ‘minefield’.
Turn a Frase
Charlie Wyett miraculously managed to only mention Rashford twice in his match report from the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But he still captures the essence of The Sun regardless:
‘Forster proved exactly why managers have to stop telling goalkeepers to play out from the back.’
Nah, Forster proved exactly why his specific manager has to stop telling him to play out from the back.
‘We see it each and every week, from the Premier League to League Two. Managers need their heads testing for being so stupid, so reckless.’
It doesn’t seem necessary to retread every strand of this tired argument in big 2024 but a Spurs back-up keeper being asked to play a different way at 36 and doing it terribly feels like an indictment only on that Spurs back-up keeper and his manager, rather than the sport as a whole.
Taking the Mik
It is five years since Arsenal appointed Mikel Arteta as their manager and John Cross of the Daily Mirror is not impressed. He writes:
‘The point that everyone seems to be missing is this – 20 years – is the longest that Arsenal have gone post-war without winning the title. The last time they lifted the trophy was in 2004 with the Invincibles. Arsenal won it in the 50s, the 1971 Double, they enjoyed 1989 and 91 successes under George Graham and then Arsene Wenger’s three titles in his reign.
‘So, let’s not try to dress this up as some kind of rebuilding job. Arteta has turned the club around. But Arsenal do expect to be winning titles and the major trophies.’
A counterpoint: Arsenal were 10th in the Premier League table and below Sheffield United when Arteta came in. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was the captain and Mesut Ozil was their highest earner.
‘Some kind of rebuilding job’ is precisely what it was at first, even if Arsenal did admittedly win the title in 1953.
Robinson’s fruit shoot
‘I would leave’ – Liverpool receive perfect transfer message as star makes stance clear
If Antonee Robinson saying he would leave in the event a club met Fulham’s asking price and sanctioned his exit is really a ‘perfect transfer message’ then yes, fair enough to the Liverpool Echo.
Not sure how it helps Liverpool match a valuation of at least £40m but still.
It’s a bowl of Choudhury, sir
‘Leicester star Choudhury swaps national teams despite playing for England U21s’ – The Sun website.
He’s switched allegiances ‘despite’ making seven appearances with the youth setup, the latest of which was more than five years ago? The madman.
