Marcus Rashford has offered a withering assessment of Manchester United\u2019s predicament, saying a lack of consistent playing principles since Sir Alex Ferguson stood down has left the club in \u201cno man\u2019s land\u201d.<\/p>\n
The forward, on loan for the season at Barcelona<\/a> from United, believes that despite repeated talk of transition no transition has taken place and that the club will not be able to win the Premier League or achieve consistent success unless they make a plan and stick with it.<\/p>\n Rashford was sidelined by Ruben Amorim, the sixth permanent United manager since Ferguson went 12 years ago. The England international came through the academy while Ferguson was in charge.<\/p>\n \u201cShow me a successful team that just adapts,\u201d Rashford told the Rest is Football<\/a> podcast. \u201cWhen Fergie was in charge, not only the principles for the first team, the whole academy set-up so you could pick players from 15 years and over \u2013 that\u2019s a full generation. And they\u2019d all understand the principles of playing the Man United way, right?<\/p>\n \u201cYou see it with any team that\u2019s been successful over a period of time: they have principles that any coach that comes in, any player that comes in, has to align to these principles or be able to add to these principles. Whereas at times I feel like United have just been \u2026 we\u2019re hungry to win, so we\u2019ll always try to adapt and to sign players that fit this system. But it\u2019s reactionary.<\/p>\n \u201cIf your direction\u2019s always changing, you can\u2019t expect to be able to win the league. Yeah, you might win some cup tournaments, but it\u2019s because you do have a good coach and you do have good players and you have match winners in your team \u2013 you\u2019re not there by accident.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what some people forget. So yeah, we\u2019ve been way below where we deem United to be. But then if you take a step back, which I\u2019ve been able to do, especially over the last six months \u2013 what do you expect? People say we\u2019ve been in a transition for years. To be in a transition, you have to start the transition. So it\u2019s like the actual transition\u2019s not started yet.\u201d<\/p>\n No United manager in the post-Ferguson era has been given three years. Rashford said the club could learn from Liverpool who, in 2020 under J\u00fcrgen Klopp, ended a 30-year wait for a top-flight title. Klopp joined in October 2015 and secured his first trophy in 2019.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Liverpool went through this, they got Klopp, they stuck with him,\u201d Rashford said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t win in the beginning. People only remember his final few years when he was competing with [Manchester] City and winning the biggest trophies \u2013 he certainly didn\u2019t win for three years.<\/p>\n \u201cTo start a transition, you have to make a plan and stick to it. So this is the thing that I feel \u2013 it\u2019s not easy. Because if it\u2019s not going well, the fans demand [change]. But this is where I speak about being realistic with what your situation is. I feel like we\u2019ve had that many different managers and different ideas and different strategies in order to win \u2026 you end up in the middle of \u2013 you end up in no man\u2019s land.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcus Rashford has offered a withering assessment of Manchester United\u2019s predicament, saying a lack of consistent playing principles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-340834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115020847070085351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}