Wayne Rooney's Marcus Rashford comments age badly as Ruben Amorim gets tough
Marcus Rashford was dropped for Manchester United’s recent trip to rivals Manchester City, and his fall from grace at Old Trafford has made Wayne Rooney’s past comments look slightly foolish
by Ben Crawford · The MirrorWayne Rooney has been made to eat his words after Ruben Amorim's damning decision to drop Marcus Rashford for Manchester United’s derby with Manchester City.
His performances in recent times have been a far cry from his 30-goal 2022/23 campaign under the now-sacked Erik ten Hag. While the arrival of Amorim at Old Trafford last month presented the Englishman with a clean slate – which he appeared to take advantage of by scoring the first goal of the new era against Ipswich Town and then bagging a double against Everton a week later – another wall has since been hit.
He was dropped from the starting XI for games against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, being named on the bench instead. And then, to make matters worse, Rashford and fellow forward Alejandro Garnacho were axed from the squad entirely in the club's latest crucial outing at the Etihad.
Head coach Amorim declared his decision was made in order to 'push them harder', though it remains evident that both are not performing up to par behind the scenes. Comments made by Rooney earlier this year – that he believed Rashford could one day break his Red Devils scoring record – are now looking increasingly premature and misguided.
“He’s in a privileged position where he’s playing for Manchester United,” Rooney told TNT Sports as recently as March. “I’ve said before, he’s the one player I really believed could go and get my goalscoring record. I hope he does because he’s a Manchester lad, but he needs to hit some consistency.
“Of course, he needs to find some form and consistency and become a leader of this team. I don’t think Marcus is that type of player; I don’t think he’s a leader, and sometimes his body language doesn’t look the best from that point of view.
“For me I look at the likes of Casemiro, Bruno [Fernandes] as captain. They’re players who should be getting that out of Marcus because sometimes you need your team-mates to get more out of you as well.”
Yet, the task of breaking Rooney’s 253-goal record now seems further away than ever before for Rashford, who has 138 goals for United across all competitions to date.
It is suggested that Rashford is now ‘unhappy’ at the club, with Sky Sports reporting the 27-year-old has made a less-than-stellar impression on boss Amorim in training and could depart the club in January, either on loan or even on a permanent basis.
Premier League icon Alan Shearer shares general concerns over the Englishman’s future, telling Mirror Football: “I don’t know him personally. I saw him three years ago scoring 30 goals a season, so it is in there, but we haven’t seen anywhere near that for a long time now.
“There’s only two guys who can answer, his manager and him with his attitude and his performances and his belief. His performances haven’t been there for a while; he’s gone from there to down there in such a short space of time, so clearly something’s not right.
“I don’t know why he’s gone from there three years ago to where he is now, but I don’t see a happy player. It would be wrong for me to speculate. I don’t know what’s going on around him.”
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