Rashford is becoming the man Ronaldo used to be
But Erik ten Hag, who handled Ronaldo so wisely, didn't get it quite right this time
FIVE ASIDES Premier League: Wolves 0, United 1
Who needs Ronaldo? MR10 is becoming the man CR7 used to be. Most of Marcus Rashford’s goals are all about his pace, but this one was the product of determination. He played a sharp one-two with Bruno Fernandes, which took him into a traffic jam – just the sort of situation he couldn’t handle last season. This time he kept going, shrugged off three defenders, showed strength and grit, and then found the rapier thrust that had eluded United’s forwards in his absence. The novelist Philip Pullman, who used to be a teacher, said that in any class, there were certain roles that had to be filled, so that if the class clown left, another kid would immediately take their place. This is what has happened with Ronaldo’s unedifying departure, except that it’s taken two people to replace him. Fernandes has become the main man in terms of personality. Rashford has become the class act, the goal machine, the unstoppable force charging in from the wing. Casemiro, who has played with plenty of superstars, reckons ‘he can be one of the five best players in the world’. This purple patch won’t last forever but, for the moment, it’s a joy to see.
Everyone said the same thing about Erik Ten Hag’s decision to stick Rashford on the bench. He’s so good at discipline! He stood up to Ronaldo and now he’s standing up to Rashford! Well, yes, the discipline is needed, but the punishment was weird – a 45-minute suspension. Perhaps Ten Hag felt it fitted the crime: you miss the start of the team meeting, we make you miss the start of the match. An eye for an eye! But suspension makes no sense as an internal punishment, because it penalises the team, and the fans, as well as the miscreant. Far better to fine Rashford £50,000 and hand it to the MUST food bank. It was also bizarre of Ten Hag, when interviewed before the match, to say “internal disciplinary [issue]” rather than “he was late”. Rashford, interviewed afterwards, came clean, saying he’d gone back to sleep after his alarm went off. He handled the episode better than the manager – though Ten Hag did well, at the end of the game, to seek him out with a smile and a hug.
This was United’s third game since the World Cup, and their third clean sheet. That was mostly down to three players – Rafael Varane, who was majestic as usual; Luke Shaw, who could easily have been bullied by Diego Costa but did another fine impression of Lisandro Martinez; and David de Gea, who produced two classic saves, a salmon leap to keep a free kick out and a point-blank punch to stop a header following a corner. United probably need to get Dean Henderson back and install him as the No 1 for next season, but De Gea, who seems to be willing to take a pay cut, is not about to make that tricky decision any easier.
The weakest link, again, was Antony. His game was all misplaced passes and muddle-headed decisions, culminating in the moment when, with the goal at his mercy, he bent down and offered a limp, waist-high header rather than springing into the air and slamming the ball into the top corner. (It turned out he was offside anyway, which either spared his blushes or showed that he had made another bad decision.) It was a mystery why he stayed on the field when Rashford was released from detention: Alejandro Garnacho, hit-and-miss as he has been in the past week, was surely more dangerous.
United have finally made it back to the top four. They’ve done it by dragging their performance against the lesser teams (now 22 points from 11 games) up to match their displays against the big guns (ten points from five). Since the double shocker at the start of the season, United have won seven of the nine league games in which they were the favourites, stumbling only against Newcastle and at Villa Park. After the win at Molineux, United fans turned into unlikely Leeds fans for two hours and found themselves rewarded as Newcastle, so consistent lately, dropped two points at home. If the midweek games go to form and United batter Bournemouth while Newcastle lose at Arsenal, United will be third. After Bournemouth, and a couple of winnable cup fixtures (Everton and Charlton, both at Old Trafford), they face the top two back to back – Arsenal away, City at home. To get three or four points from those games, they will need to be more ruthless in front of goal. For now, though, almost everything in the garden is rosy. Happy new year! And thanks for reading.
Tim de Lisle writes about sport for The Guardian and music for The Mail on Sunday. If you’re still on Twitter, do follow him and United Writing.