Marcus Rashford had the gall to grab a break after getting injured and pulling out of England duty. If he can walk around New York…
The city that never sleeps on Marcus Rashford
It’s Monday so perhaps Mediawatch should have moved on by now, but we continue to be irked by Ian Ladyman’s piece in the Daily Mail on Saturday in which he quite happily stokes some pretty pathetic Marcus Rashford flames because, well, it’s the Daily bloody Mail and that’s pretty much why they exist.
‘IAN LADYMAN: Globetrotting Marcus Rashford risks getting left behind as Gareth Southgate’s ideal England XI takes shape without the Manchester United winger… who’s busy holidaying in New York’
So much to unpick here. First, ‘Gareth Southgate’s ideal England XI’ currently has no established left-sided forward. Handily for Rashford, this is where he plays. Second, he was ‘busy holidaying in New York’ because he had some time off after being unavailable for the England games.
As Gareth Southgate said on Saturday when ludicrously asked whether Rashford should be walking around New York when he was incapable of playing international football: “I wouldn’t think the levels are quite the same!”
But Ladyman knows his readers will be irked by images of Rashford in New York rather than, presumably, at home wearing sackcloth, ashes and one of those moon boots so…
‘Arguably there is now only one place up for grabs in Southgate’s first-choice team. We can expect him to rotate tomorrow, but in terms of the team he would choose for a game his life depended on, only the berth on the left side of his attacking three is open.
‘For these two games, that has become a tussle between Manchester City team-mates Jack Grealish and Phil Foden and that was due, in part, to the fact Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling were not here. Sterling was not selected because of injury while Rashford withdrew before taking a holiday in New York.’
Rashford ‘withdrew before taking a holiday in New York’ because he was injured, Ian. Oh and you forgot James Maddison, which is curious from a man who lost his mind in November when he thought Southgate might overlook the Leicester man. ‘Absurd’ was the word used. Talking of ‘absurd’…
‘That (the holiday to New York) was an interesting choice, as was the decision to post Instagram photos in the hours leading up to kick-off in Italy, captioned ‘Downtime’.’
As Southgate himself said: “Once he’s ruled out of…
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