According to Alan Shearer, Marcus Rashford’s benching by Erik Ten Hag suggests a problem inside the Manchester United winger’s team.
Before Saturday’s trip to Crystal Palace, Rashford had already scored his first goals of the year, netting in the 7-0 Carabao Cup slaughter of League One Barnsley in midweek and scoring three goals in the previous week’s away victory at Southampton.
It was unexpected, therefore, that he ended up becoming one of the replacements at Selhurst Park when he entered the game for the last half of the 0-0 tie with Palace. Instead, Ten Hag stated that Alejandro Garnacho began the game on the left, solely for rotational purposes.
Shearer and his co-host Gary Lineker on Match of the Day, however, believe the United manager was distorting the facts. They believe Rashford’s suspension from last season—which stemmed from a late-night excursion to Belfast that left him too sick to train—was the main non-football concern.
“It looks like, reading between the lines, there might be some disciplinary issues because he (Ten Hag) kind of mooted that in his press conference that ‘Marcus has got to be professional,'” Lineker said in an opening statement to their podcast, The Rest Is Football.
“Why else would you leave him out?” Shearer asked. When things have been criticized—I included myself in the criticism—for performances, and you score a goal the previous weekend, you score another couple in midweek.
“Why would you even consider excluding him at all? My assumption—which is just an assumption—is that it must be something else. During his pre-match press conference last week, Ten Hag made hints about Rashford’s lack of “professionalism”.
“I think he always knew, and every player knows, because when your lifestyle is not right you can’t perform,” he stated to reporters. “If you don’t lead a decent, orderly life away from Carrington, you won’t achieve the necessary levels.
“It’s likely that he required assistance, like backup. Ultimately, he must do it on his own. He needs to get his life in order, as well as his training and match attitudes. He is a class player, therefore he will perform when he puts his professionalism in place.”
However, in an interview with Sky Sports before kickoff, he drew a different conclusion and justified the benching by citing the necessity for new players. With the Europa League starting this week, United will play four games in twelve days before the next international break. The games will come thick and fast for the team.
Ten Hag said, “It was not difficult [to drop him] because we need to rotate.” “Because we need to give Alejandro games because we have a lot of games to cover. As we’ve all seen, he produces a lot of value and has a lot of goals and assists, but he does so frequently as a substitute. He only has one start this season, so he also needs starts.”