Marcus Rashford may ignore some frankly awful Man Utd advice to make a ‘shock’ Premier League move, while Leny Yoro is busy arguing with Cristiano Ronaldo.
Young at heart
In fairness to MailOnline, they probably get the biggest story in all of football on Friday morning absolutely right by leading on the Ashley Young and Darren Ferguson stuff.
The way they go about it is predictably awful but you can’t have everything.
‘Fergie’s killjoy nepo baby: Sir Alex Ferguson’s son Darren is slammed for denying Ashley Young his ‘dream’ by refusing to play his son against him – after his own famous father handed him ‘lucky’ break’, is the meatiest of headlines atop their website.
A few points:
1) He was ‘slammed’ by a couple of people on Twitter, who opinions are given far more precedence than that of Joe Bernstein and any other journalists the Mail actually sent to report on the game.
2) Ferguson didn’t ‘refuse to play’ Tyler Young, he just decided at 1-0 down with a couple of minutes to go in an FA Cup tie not to bring on a teenage defender whose entire professional career consists of a half-hour cameo in the EFL Trophy.
3) The ‘lucky’ break line comes from an old Roy Keane quote and leads to a massive ‘ROY KEANE WAS RIGHT!’ standfirst under a picture in which he also appears, despite him only ever having described Ferguson as “lucky” to win a Premier League title as a player after making 15 appearances in a title-winning season for actual Manchester United.
That, folks, is not quite the same as defender Tyler Young and his 27 EFL Trophy minutes not being trusted to rescue an FA Cup tie.
Rash decision
In The Sun, Charlie Wyett promises to take us ‘Inside Marcus Rashford’s career-defining decision ahead of make-or-break transfer and Man Utd team-mate’s advice,’ which is nice of him.
It’s very much the ‘Man Utd team-mate’s advice’ which has piqued the interest of Mediawatch here. Which team-mate has delivered what advice to Rashford exactly? Has Casemiro told him to go through the 2024 KPIs of his loved ones over some tapas? Did Mason Mount suggest he stop eating yellow snow? Or is Antony going round trying to convince people to take up fidget spinning again?
‘MARCUS RASHFORD should at least consider the advice of Harry Maguire, his team-mate and former captain at Manchester United.’
That’s one mystery solved. Harry Maguire it is. Now for this piece of sage advice handed down to Rashford which he simply must follow.
‘Maguire has had his problems at Old Trafford, like Rashford, and has also suffered a huge amount of criticism again, like Rashford.
‘But the centre-half has stubbornly refused to leave, maintaining that once you quit United, the only way is down.’
Well that’s not true. Scott McTominay has a combined eight goals and assists in 18 appearances for Serie A leaders Napoli. Jadon Sancho is nine places and 13 points better off with Chelsea. Anthony Elanga probably isn’t regretting his decision to ‘quit’ and move ‘down’ to title-chasing Champions League botherers Nottingham Forest.
But also, that’s absolutely not advice and certainly not advice Maguire has in any way given to Rashford.
Marc of the man
It is also worth pointing out that at least part of the season Maguire ‘stubbornly refused to leave’ is because Manchester United priced many a suitor out of any deal, including West Ham.
That is pertinent for his Rashford ‘advice’ as the Hammers have ’emerged as shock contenders’ to sign the forward, if talkSPORT are to be believed.
And frankly they are not, unless having ‘asked to be kept informed on Marcus Rashford’s situation’ suddenly helps them afford a £40m transfer fee and £300,000 worth of wages a week.
West Ham have ’emerged as shock contenders’ to sign Rashford in the same way Como did. Which is to say they haven’t at all.
Fact of the matter
The aforementioned struggle with concept of words is real with Wyett, who later in the same article adds:
‘And 12 months ago, Rashford went on a 12-hour tequila booze bender in Belfast. One of the other memorable facts from this trip was the claim that he ordered bruschetta at a restaurant but did not touch it as he does not like tomatoes with seeds in them.’
Not sure a ‘claim’ that someone did something can also be called a ‘fact’ in the same sentence. And it was so ‘memorable’ that this is the first time Mediawatch has heard about it.
Elite my words
In fact, there is a general grapple with certain terms across the board at The Sun, with their website explaining how ‘Jose Mourinho will join elite club if he makes shock Premier League return at Everton that includes Pardew and Bruce’.
The problem becomes immediately apparent once ‘Pardew and Bruce’ pop up at the end as members of this ‘elite club’ Mourinho stands to join. They could have also chosen Neil Warnock, Graeme Souness, Ron Atkinson or Chris Hughton for this ‘elite club’ is literally just a group of people who have managed four different Premier League clubs. It’s not exactly exclusive or prestigious.
But Jose will no doubt stick it right alongside his two Champions League winner’s medals. Can absolutely picture him holding up four fingers while ranting about “heritage” to be fair.
A Leny for your thoughts
The last thing Manchester United need right now is bad news and a public dispute with a high-profile figure. ‘Leny Yoro disagrees with Cristiano Ronaldo as Man Utd defender reflects on start at club’ is not the sort of headline they will want to see and only time will tell what entirely necessary cost-cutting measures Sir Jim Ratcliffe takes in response.
It is mightily brave but ultimately foolish of teenager Yoro to take on the sheer PR force of a generational superstar more than twice his age. But the defender ‘has created a firm dividing line between himself’ and Ronaldo – by saying the weather isn’t all that bad.
And because Jacob Leeks has unearthed some comments made almost 20 entire years ago – before Yoro was born – about how “the weather is very difficult for me,” we suddenly get a ‘Manchester United player disagrees with Cristiano Ronaldo’ headline in big 2025.
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