Alan Shearer, a legend of the Premier League, said that Marcus Rashford wasn’t moving or placing himself well enough during Manchester United’s 2-1 loss at Brighton on Saturday.
Rashford played 65 minutes at the AMEX Stadium but didn’t score a single goal.
The same thing happened in United’s first league game of the season against Fulham; Rashford played the whole game but couldn’t get a goal off.
The Sun says Rashford has been working out with club great Ruud van Nistelrooy more often since he started working as a coach for United in July.
It looks like Van Nistelrooy has been working on Rashford’s back post sense and his runs across the box. Van Nistelrooy scored 150 goals for United in 219 games from 2001 to 2006.
But Shearer pointed out another part of Rashford’s game that seems to need a lot of work.
When Shearer talked about Saturday’s games on BBC Match of the Day, he said Rashford should not have been caught offside twice against Brighton.
In the beginning of his short rant, Shearer pointed out that United scored 57 goals in the Premier League last season, which was fewer than any other team in the top half.
He said, “Ruud van Nistelrooy has been brought in, and he needs to do something magical.”
“They have Rasmus Hojlund out with an injury, but when he comes back, he’ll have to make that better because it wasn’t good enough today or in the game against Fulham,” the manager said.
Gary Lineker, who like Shearer was a great striker and former England captain, tried to support Rashford when he was caught offside more than once.
Lineker added, “The only thing I would say in Rashford’s defense is that at least he is trying to make runs.”
Shearer replied, “Yeah, but he’s not a kid anymore.” He needs to know where he is on the game and look at the whole thing. If he can see everything, he shouldn’t be offside.
He got 260 goals in 441 Premier League games from 1992 to 2006. The 54-year-old is still the competition’s top scorer of all time.
Rashford, on the other hand, has scored 83 goals in 274 Premier League games for United.
Rashiford has scored 17 goals in a Premier League season twice, in 2019–20 and 2022–23.
But in 33 league games last year, he only scored seven goals.
United’s next game is on September 1 at home against Liverpool.