Failures from front to back: Erik ten Hag is rocking again just 16 days into season
Jamie Jackson
Failures from front to back: Erik ten Hag is rocking again just 16 days into season
Jamie Jackson
at Old Trafford
With Marcus Rashford and Casemiro struggling, the same worrying questions are back for Manchester United’s Ineos regime
Sun 1 Sep 2024 20.54 BST
Share
Already, the new Erik ten Hag/Ineos project is on the back foot. This 3-0 shellacking by Liverpool could have been far more humiliating – and damaging. Two defeats from three Premier League outings is a dismal way to sign off before the international break, as Ten Hag and company seek to regroup a mere 16 days after the season’s start.
Trying to write this collapse off as a blip is fanciful because on show was a failure in basic competence, from front to back, epitomised by the catastrophes engineered by a hapless Casemiro that led to goals.
Luis DÃaz (No 7) heads in Liverpool's first goal against Manchester United
Luis DÃaz strikes twice as dominant Liverpool win at Manchester United
Read more
Here we come to a pertinent off‑field question as well. To witness the 20-year-old Toby Collyer being asked to replace the Brazilian at half-time for a Premier League debut is no calling card of the slick strategy the Ineos revolution is supposed to bring. If Collyer appeared lost, the greater issue is how United could enter this encounter with their fiercest rivals two days after the market closed with only one senior holding midfielder (Casemiro) eligible to play, after having all summer to fix the glaring hole in Ten Hag’s squad.
Beforehand, Manuel Ugarte, the manager’s new £42m defensive midfielder, was paraded. Bought to dislodge Casemiro, he arrived too late for clearance, and you have to wonder why the deal was so delayed, especially given the 32-year-old’s decline.
In July, during pre-season training at UCLA, Casemiro was spied flinging himself around to make last-ditch tackles. A mark of desperation, this proved an augury of the sad tale of his first half as his disintegration cost United two Luis DÃaz goals. In added time of the first period, boos greeted Casemiro’s latest error, a mid‑range pass that went to precisely no teammate and bounced into acres of Liverpool turf. What followed was a hang of his head in sorrow, Anthony Taylor blowing for the break, and Collyer jogging on to the pitch to warm up, taking instruction from a coach, Darren Fletcher, before the second half.
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
View image in fullscreen
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a game where he extended his goalless run to 12 matches for club and country. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
Casemiro was not the only culprit in red. At centre-forward, Joshua Zirkzee, on a first United start, missed clear chances and showed a clumsy touch. André Onana’s tendency to direct high balls straight out of play or to the opposition was sighted once more. The reinstated Alejandro Garnacho was ineffective, as was Bruno Fernandes, and then we arrive at the curious case of Marcus Rashford.
With Ugarte to succeed Casemiro, the bigger headache for Ten Hag is a 26-year-old whose normal state these days is becalmed and toothless: the diametric opposite of how your star forward should be.
Left out of Lee Carsley’s England squad, goalless and shotless beforehand, Rashford remains the same and has now gone 245 minutes without scoring. Retained by Ten Hag on Sunday, he needed to spark his season but failed again after a brightish beginning that featured effervescent bursts, a trip to a defensive zone to hold off Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the cleverness of thought when working a deft throw-in move with Diogo Dalot by running in behind Liverpool.
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With his lightning pace, a 200m Olympic champion physique and finishing lethal enough to score 30 times two seasons ago, Rashford’s fall-off in form is one more conundrum Ten Hag has to ponder before United return to action at Southampton on 14 September. It is a mystery that would baffle Miss Marple because after not scoring, too, in the final nine games of last term (including for England), you have to go back to 17 March and United’s breathless 4-3 FA Cup knockout of Liverpool for the last time he managed a goal.
This is an age for a man who is the club’s highest earner, whose salary of more than £350,000 a week is paid, in the main, for him to score and win matches. After being substituted 65 minutes into the 2-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend, football’s opinion factory had speculated on what might be eating him. A strand, revived from the debate over the dire eight-goal return last season, concerned Rashford’s off-pitch wellbeing. But to learn of him watching United’s Under-18s beat Liverpool’s 2-0 at Carrington on Saturday suggested a commitment to the club cause and a positive sign that the goals might flow again soon.
Not against Liverpool, as he again misfired, as too did Casemiro, and United as a whole. Already the narrative resembles last year’s one of staggering from matchday to matchday in hope rather than with belief.
Image of a footballer wearing a t-shirt that bears the phrase, "Not for sale".
Support a news organisation that's not for sale
It’s the start of a new football season. And you know what that means: misplaced optimism, record signings that will be shipped out on loan by January and … expensive replica shirts plastered with logos for gambling companies, online casinos and crypto firms.
This season, 11 out of 20 teams in the Premier League will have betting firms as their main front-of-shirt sponsor.
You’ll catch every moment of the season – from wonder goals to VAR shockers – in the Guardian’s football coverage, but what you won’t catch anywhere on our website, app, newspaper, newsletters or podcasts is a gambling ad.
.jpeg)
Having reported extensively on the harms caused by gambling addiction, the Guardian announced a worldwide ban on betting advertisement in June 2023. We remain the only major media organisation to have taken this step.
It’s a move that has cost us money, but we believe it was the correct one.
And we know we have the backing of our readers. Our coverage is open to all as we know not everyone can afford to pay for news. But if you enjoy our sports coverage, you can help us produce more of it for less than the cost of a half-time pie.
at Old Trafford
With Marcus Rashford and Casemiro struggling, the same worrying questions are back for Manchester United’s Ineos regime
Sun 1 Sep 2024 20.54 BST
Share
Already, the new Erik ten Hag/Ineos project is on the back foot. This 3-0 shellacking by Liverpool could have been far more humiliating – and damaging. Two defeats from three Premier League outings is a dismal way to sign off before the international break, as Ten Hag and company seek to regroup a mere 16 days after the season’s start.
Trying to write this collapse off as a blip is fanciful because on show was a failure in basic competence, from front to back, epitomised by the catastrophes engineered by a hapless Casemiro that led to goals.
Luis DÃaz (No 7) heads in Liverpool's first goal against Manchester United
Luis DÃaz strikes twice as dominant Liverpool win at Manchester United
Read more
Here we come to a pertinent off‑field question as well. To witness the 20-year-old Toby Collyer being asked to replace the Brazilian at half-time for a Premier League debut is no calling card of the slick strategy the Ineos revolution is supposed to bring. If Collyer appeared lost, the greater issue is how United could enter this encounter with their fiercest rivals two days after the market closed with only one senior holding midfielder (Casemiro) eligible to play, after having all summer to fix the glaring hole in Ten Hag’s squad.
Beforehand, Manuel Ugarte, the manager’s new £42m defensive midfielder, was paraded. Bought to dislodge Casemiro, he arrived too late for clearance, and you have to wonder why the deal was so delayed, especially given the 32-year-old’s decline.
In July, during pre-season training at UCLA, Casemiro was spied flinging himself around to make last-ditch tackles. A mark of desperation, this proved an augury of the sad tale of his first half as his disintegration cost United two Luis DÃaz goals. In added time of the first period, boos greeted Casemiro’s latest error, a mid‑range pass that went to precisely no teammate and bounced into acres of Liverpool turf. What followed was a hang of his head in sorrow, Anthony Taylor blowing for the break, and Collyer jogging on to the pitch to warm up, taking instruction from a coach, Darren Fletcher, before the second half.
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
View image in fullscreen
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a game where he extended his goalless run to 12 matches for club and country. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
Casemiro was not the only culprit in red. At centre-forward, Joshua Zirkzee, on a first United start, missed clear chances and showed a clumsy touch. André Onana’s tendency to direct high balls straight out of play or to the opposition was sighted once more. The reinstated Alejandro Garnacho was ineffective, as was Bruno Fernandes, and then we arrive at the curious case of Marcus Rashford.
With Ugarte to succeed Casemiro, the bigger headache for Ten Hag is a 26-year-old whose normal state these days is becalmed and toothless: the diametric opposite of how your star forward should be.
Left out of Lee Carsley’s England squad, goalless and shotless beforehand, Rashford remains the same and has now gone 245 minutes without scoring. Retained by Ten Hag on Sunday, he needed to spark his season but failed again after a brightish beginning that featured effervescent bursts, a trip to a defensive zone to hold off Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the cleverness of thought when working a deft throw-in move with Diogo Dalot by running in behind Liverpool.
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With his lightning pace, a 200m Olympic champion physique and finishing lethal enough to score 30 times two seasons ago, Rashford’s fall-off in form is one more conundrum Ten Hag has to ponder before United return to action at Southampton on 14 September. It is a mystery that would baffle Miss Marple because after not scoring, too, in the final nine games of last term (including for England), you have to go back to 17 March and United’s breathless 4-3 FA Cup knockout of Liverpool for the last time he managed a goal.
This is an age for a man who is the club’s highest earner, whose salary of more than £350,000 a week is paid, in the main, for him to score and win matches. After being substituted 65 minutes into the 2-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend, football’s opinion factory had speculated on what might be eating him. A strand, revived from the debate over the dire eight-goal return last season, concerned Rashford’s off-pitch wellbeing. But to learn of him watching United’s Under-18s beat Liverpool’s 2-0 at Carrington on Saturday suggested a commitment to the club cause and a positive sign that the goals might flow again soon.
Not against Liverpool, as he again misfired, as too did Casemiro, and United as a whole. Already the narrative resembles last year’s one of staggering from matchday to matchday in hope rather than with belief.
Image of a footballer wearing a t-shirt that bears the phrase, "Not for sale".
Support a news organisation that's not for sale
It’s the start of a new football season. And you know what that means: misplaced optimism, record signings that will be shipped out on loan by January and … expensive replica shirts plastered with logos for gambling companies, online casinos and crypto firms.
This season, 11 out of 20 teams in the Premier League will have betting firms as their main front-of-shirt sponsor.
You’ll catch every moment of the season – from wonder goals to VAR shockers – in the Guardian’s football coverage, but what you won’t catch anywhere on our website, app, newspaper, newsletters or podcasts is a gambling ad.
Having reported extensively on the harms caused by gambling addiction, the Guardian announced a worldwide ban on betting advertisement in June 2023. We remain the only major media organisation to have taken this step.
It’s a move that has cost us money, but we believe it was the correct one.
And we know we have the backing of our readers. Our coverage is open to all as we know not everyone can afford to pay for news. But if you enjoy our sports coverage, you can help us produce more of it for less than the cost of a half-time pie.
Failures from front to back: Erik ten Hag is rocking again just 16 days into season
Jamie Jackson
at Old Trafford
With Marcus Rashford and Casemiro struggling, the same worrying questions are back for Manchester United’s Ineos regime
Sun 1 Sep 2024 20.54 BST
Share
Already, the new Erik ten Hag/Ineos project is on the back foot. This 3-0 shellacking by Liverpool could have been far more humiliating – and damaging. Two defeats from three Premier League outings is a dismal way to sign off before the international break, as Ten Hag and company seek to regroup a mere 16 days after the season’s start.
Trying to write this collapse off as a blip is fanciful because on show was a failure in basic competence, from front to back, epitomised by the catastrophes engineered by a hapless Casemiro that led to goals.
Luis DÃaz (No 7) heads in Liverpool's first goal against Manchester United
Luis DÃaz strikes twice as dominant Liverpool win at Manchester United
Read more
Here we come to a pertinent off‑field question as well. To witness the 20-year-old Toby Collyer being asked to replace the Brazilian at half-time for a Premier League debut is no calling card of the slick strategy the Ineos revolution is supposed to bring. If Collyer appeared lost, the greater issue is how United could enter this encounter with their fiercest rivals two days after the market closed with only one senior holding midfielder (Casemiro) eligible to play, after having all summer to fix the glaring hole in Ten Hag’s squad.
Beforehand, Manuel Ugarte, the manager’s new £42m defensive midfielder, was paraded. Bought to dislodge Casemiro, he arrived too late for clearance, and you have to wonder why the deal was so delayed, especially given the 32-year-old’s decline.
In July, during pre-season training at UCLA, Casemiro was spied flinging himself around to make last-ditch tackles. A mark of desperation, this proved an augury of the sad tale of his first half as his disintegration cost United two Luis DÃaz goals. In added time of the first period, boos greeted Casemiro’s latest error, a mid‑range pass that went to precisely no teammate and bounced into acres of Liverpool turf. What followed was a hang of his head in sorrow, Anthony Taylor blowing for the break, and Collyer jogging on to the pitch to warm up, taking instruction from a coach, Darren Fletcher, before the second half.
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
View image in fullscreen
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a game where he extended his goalless run to 12 matches for club and country. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
Casemiro was not the only culprit in red. At centre-forward, Joshua Zirkzee, on a first United start, missed clear chances and showed a clumsy touch. André Onana’s tendency to direct high balls straight out of play or to the opposition was sighted once more. The reinstated Alejandro Garnacho was ineffective, as was Bruno Fernandes, and then we arrive at the curious case of Marcus Rashford.
With Ugarte to succeed Casemiro, the bigger headache for Ten Hag is a 26-year-old whose normal state these days is becalmed and toothless: the diametric opposite of how your star forward should be.
Left out of Lee Carsley’s England squad, goalless and shotless beforehand, Rashford remains the same and has now gone 245 minutes without scoring. Retained by Ten Hag on Sunday, he needed to spark his season but failed again after a brightish beginning that featured effervescent bursts, a trip to a defensive zone to hold off Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the cleverness of thought when working a deft throw-in move with Diogo Dalot by running in behind Liverpool.
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to Football Daily
Free daily newsletter
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
Enter your email address
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Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
With his lightning pace, a 200m Olympic champion physique and finishing lethal enough to score 30 times two seasons ago, Rashford’s fall-off in form is one more conundrum Ten Hag has to ponder before United return to action at Southampton on 14 September. It is a mystery that would baffle Miss Marple because after not scoring, too, in the final nine games of last term (including for England), you have to go back to 17 March and United’s breathless 4-3 FA Cup knockout of Liverpool for the last time he managed a goal.
This is an age for a man who is the club’s highest earner, whose salary of more than £350,000 a week is paid, in the main, for him to score and win matches. After being substituted 65 minutes into the 2-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend, football’s opinion factory had speculated on what might be eating him. A strand, revived from the debate over the dire eight-goal return last season, concerned Rashford’s off-pitch wellbeing. But to learn of him watching United’s Under-18s beat Liverpool’s 2-0 at Carrington on Saturday suggested a commitment to the club cause and a positive sign that the goals might flow again soon.
Not against Liverpool, as he again misfired, as too did Casemiro, and United as a whole. Already the narrative resembles last year’s one of staggering from matchday to matchday in hope rather than with belief.
Image of a footballer wearing a t-shirt that bears the phrase, "Not for sale".
Support a news organisation that's not for sale
It’s the start of a new football season. And you know what that means: misplaced optimism, record signings that will be shipped out on loan by January and … expensive replica shirts plastered with logos for gambling companies, online casinos and crypto firms.
This season, 11 out of 20 teams in the Premier League will have betting firms as their main front-of-shirt sponsor.
You’ll catch every moment of the season – from wonder goals to VAR shockers – in the Guardian’s football coverage, but what you won’t catch anywhere on our website, app, newspaper, newsletters or podcasts is a gambling ad.
Having reported extensively on the harms caused by gambling addiction, the Guardian announced a worldwide ban on betting advertisement in June 2023. We remain the only major media organisation to have taken this step.
It’s a move that has cost us money, but we believe it was the correct one.
And we know we have the backing of our readers. Our coverage is open to all as we know not everyone can afford to pay for news. But if you enjoy our sports coverage, you can help us produce more of it for less than the cost of a half-time pie.
at Old Trafford
With Marcus Rashford and Casemiro struggling, the same worrying questions are back for Manchester United’s Ineos regime
Sun 1 Sep 2024 20.54 BST
Share
Already, the new Erik ten Hag/Ineos project is on the back foot. This 3-0 shellacking by Liverpool could have been far more humiliating – and damaging. Two defeats from three Premier League outings is a dismal way to sign off before the international break, as Ten Hag and company seek to regroup a mere 16 days after the season’s start.
Trying to write this collapse off as a blip is fanciful because on show was a failure in basic competence, from front to back, epitomised by the catastrophes engineered by a hapless Casemiro that led to goals.
Luis DÃaz (No 7) heads in Liverpool's first goal against Manchester United
Luis DÃaz strikes twice as dominant Liverpool win at Manchester United
Read more
Here we come to a pertinent off‑field question as well. To witness the 20-year-old Toby Collyer being asked to replace the Brazilian at half-time for a Premier League debut is no calling card of the slick strategy the Ineos revolution is supposed to bring. If Collyer appeared lost, the greater issue is how United could enter this encounter with their fiercest rivals two days after the market closed with only one senior holding midfielder (Casemiro) eligible to play, after having all summer to fix the glaring hole in Ten Hag’s squad.
Beforehand, Manuel Ugarte, the manager’s new £42m defensive midfielder, was paraded. Bought to dislodge Casemiro, he arrived too late for clearance, and you have to wonder why the deal was so delayed, especially given the 32-year-old’s decline.
In July, during pre-season training at UCLA, Casemiro was spied flinging himself around to make last-ditch tackles. A mark of desperation, this proved an augury of the sad tale of his first half as his disintegration cost United two Luis DÃaz goals. In added time of the first period, boos greeted Casemiro’s latest error, a mid‑range pass that went to precisely no teammate and bounced into acres of Liverpool turf. What followed was a hang of his head in sorrow, Anthony Taylor blowing for the break, and Collyer jogging on to the pitch to warm up, taking instruction from a coach, Darren Fletcher, before the second half.
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
View image in fullscreen
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a game where he extended his goalless run to 12 matches for club and country. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
Casemiro was not the only culprit in red. At centre-forward, Joshua Zirkzee, on a first United start, missed clear chances and showed a clumsy touch. André Onana’s tendency to direct high balls straight out of play or to the opposition was sighted once more. The reinstated Alejandro Garnacho was ineffective, as was Bruno Fernandes, and then we arrive at the curious case of Marcus Rashford.
With Ugarte to succeed Casemiro, the bigger headache for Ten Hag is a 26-year-old whose normal state these days is becalmed and toothless: the diametric opposite of how your star forward should be.
Left out of Lee Carsley’s England squad, goalless and shotless beforehand, Rashford remains the same and has now gone 245 minutes without scoring. Retained by Ten Hag on Sunday, he needed to spark his season but failed again after a brightish beginning that featured effervescent bursts, a trip to a defensive zone to hold off Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the cleverness of thought when working a deft throw-in move with Diogo Dalot by running in behind Liverpool.
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to Football Daily
Free daily newsletter
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
Enter your email address
Sign up
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
With his lightning pace, a 200m Olympic champion physique and finishing lethal enough to score 30 times two seasons ago, Rashford’s fall-off in form is one more conundrum Ten Hag has to ponder before United return to action at Southampton on 14 September. It is a mystery that would baffle Miss Marple because after not scoring, too, in the final nine games of last term (including for England), you have to go back to 17 March and United’s breathless 4-3 FA Cup knockout of Liverpool for the last time he managed a goal.
This is an age for a man who is the club’s highest earner, whose salary of more than £350,000 a week is paid, in the main, for him to score and win matches. After being substituted 65 minutes into the 2-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend, football’s opinion factory had speculated on what might be eating him. A strand, revived from the debate over the dire eight-goal return last season, concerned Rashford’s off-pitch wellbeing. But to learn of him watching United’s Under-18s beat Liverpool’s 2-0 at Carrington on Saturday suggested a commitment to the club cause and a positive sign that the goals might flow again soon.
Not against Liverpool, as he again misfired, as too did Casemiro, and United as a whole. Already the narrative resembles last year’s one of staggering from matchday to matchday in hope rather than with belief.
Image of a footballer wearing a t-shirt that bears the phrase, "Not for sale".
Support a news organisation that's not for sale
It’s the start of a new football season. And you know what that means: misplaced optimism, record signings that will be shipped out on loan by January and … expensive replica shirts plastered with logos for gambling companies, online casinos and crypto firms.
This season, 11 out of 20 teams in the Premier League will have betting firms as their main front-of-shirt sponsor.
You’ll catch every moment of the season – from wonder goals to VAR shockers – in the Guardian’s football coverage, but what you won’t catch anywhere on our website, app, newspaper, newsletters or podcasts is a gambling ad.
Having reported extensively on the harms caused by gambling addiction, the Guardian announced a worldwide ban on betting advertisement in June 2023. We remain the only major media organisation to have taken this step.
It’s a move that has cost us money, but we believe it was the correct one.
And we know we have the backing of our readers. Our coverage is open to all as we know not everyone can afford to pay for news. But if you enjoy our sports coverage, you can help us produce more of it for less than the cost of a half-time pie.
at Old Trafford
With Marcus Rashford and Casemiro struggling, the same worrying questions are back for Manchester United’s Ineos regime
Sun 1 Sep 2024 20.54 BST
Share
Already, the new Erik ten Hag/Ineos project is on the back foot. This 3-0 shellacking by Liverpool could have been far more humiliating – and damaging. Two defeats from three Premier League outings is a dismal way to sign off before the international break, as Ten Hag and company seek to regroup a mere 16 days after the season’s start.
Trying to write this collapse off as a blip is fanciful because on show was a failure in basic competence, from front to back, epitomised by the catastrophes engineered by a hapless Casemiro that led to goals.
Luis DÃaz (No 7) heads in Liverpool's first goal against Manchester United
Luis DÃaz strikes twice as dominant Liverpool win at Manchester United
Read more
Here we come to a pertinent off‑field question as well. To witness the 20-year-old Toby Collyer being asked to replace the Brazilian at half-time for a Premier League debut is no calling card of the slick strategy the Ineos revolution is supposed to bring. If Collyer appeared lost, the greater issue is how United could enter this encounter with their fiercest rivals two days after the market closed with only one senior holding midfielder (Casemiro) eligible to play, after having all summer to fix the glaring hole in Ten Hag’s squad.
Beforehand, Manuel Ugarte, the manager’s new £42m defensive midfielder, was paraded. Bought to dislodge Casemiro, he arrived too late for clearance, and you have to wonder why the deal was so delayed, especially given the 32-year-old’s decline.
In July, during pre-season training at UCLA, Casemiro was spied flinging himself around to make last-ditch tackles. A mark of desperation, this proved an augury of the sad tale of his first half as his disintegration cost United two Luis DÃaz goals. In added time of the first period, boos greeted Casemiro’s latest error, a mid‑range pass that went to precisely no teammate and bounced into acres of Liverpool turf. What followed was a hang of his head in sorrow, Anthony Taylor blowing for the break, and Collyer jogging on to the pitch to warm up, taking instruction from a coach, Darren Fletcher, before the second half.
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
View image in fullscreen
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a game where he extended his goalless run to 12 matches for club and country. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
Casemiro was not the only culprit in red. At centre-forward, Joshua Zirkzee, on a first United start, missed clear chances and showed a clumsy touch. André Onana’s tendency to direct high balls straight out of play or to the opposition was sighted once more. The reinstated Alejandro Garnacho was ineffective, as was Bruno Fernandes, and then we arrive at the curious case of Marcus Rashford.
With Ugarte to succeed Casemiro, the bigger headache for Ten Hag is a 26-year-old whose normal state these days is becalmed and toothless: the diametric opposite of how your star forward should be.
Left out of Lee Carsley’s England squad, goalless and shotless beforehand, Rashford remains the same and has now gone 245 minutes without scoring. Retained by Ten Hag on Sunday, he needed to spark his season but failed again after a brightish beginning that featured effervescent bursts, a trip to a defensive zone to hold off Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the cleverness of thought when working a deft throw-in move with Diogo Dalot by running in behind Liverpool.
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to Football Daily
Free daily newsletter
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football
Enter your email address
Sign up
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
With his lightning pace, a 200m Olympic champion physique and finishing lethal enough to score 30 times two seasons ago, Rashford’s fall-off in form is one more conundrum Ten Hag has to ponder before United return to action at Southampton on 14 September. It is a mystery that would baffle Miss Marple because after not scoring, too, in the final nine games of last term (including for England), you have to go back to 17 March and United’s breathless 4-3 FA Cup knockout of Liverpool for the last time he managed a goal.
This is an age for a man who is the club’s highest earner, whose salary of more than £350,000 a week is paid, in the main, for him to score and win matches. After being substituted 65 minutes into the 2-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend, football’s opinion factory had speculated on what might be eating him. A strand, revived from the debate over the dire eight-goal return last season, concerned Rashford’s off-pitch wellbeing. But to learn of him watching United’s Under-18s beat Liverpool’s 2-0 at Carrington on Saturday suggested a commitment to the club cause and a positive sign that the goals might flow again soon.
Not against Liverpool, as he again misfired, as too did Casemiro, and United as a whole. Already the narrative resembles last year’s one of staggering from matchday to matchday in hope rather than with belief.
Image of a footballer wearing a t-shirt that bears the phrase, "Not for sale".
Support a news organisation that's not for sale
It’s the start of a new football season. And you know what that means: misplaced optimism, record signings that will be shipped out on loan by January and … expensive replica shirts plastered with logos for gambling companies, online casinos and crypto firms.
This season, 11 out of 20 teams in the Premier League will have betting firms as their main front-of-shirt sponsor.
You’ll catch every moment of the season – from wonder goals to VAR shockers – in the Guardian’s football coverage, but what you won’t catch anywhere on our website, app, newspaper, newsletters or podcasts is a gambling ad.
Having reported extensively on the harms caused by gambling addiction, the Guardian announced a worldwide ban on betting advertisement in June 2023. We remain the only major media organisation to have taken this step.
It’s a move that has cost us money, but we believe it was the correct one.
And we know we have the backing of our readers. Our coverage is open to all as we know not everyone can afford to pay for news. But if you enjoy our sports coverage, you can help us produce more of it for less than the cost of a half-time pie.
at Old Trafford
With Marcus Rashford and Casemiro struggling, the same worrying questions are back for Manchester United’s Ineos regime
Sun 1 Sep 2024 20.54 BST
Share
Already, the new Erik ten Hag/Ineos project is on the back foot. This 3-0 shellacking by Liverpool could have been far more humiliating – and damaging. Two defeats from three Premier League outings is a dismal way to sign off before the international break, as Ten Hag and company seek to regroup a mere 16 days after the season’s start.
Trying to write this collapse off as a blip is fanciful because on show was a failure in basic competence, from front to back, epitomised by the catastrophes engineered by a hapless Casemiro that led to goals.
Luis DÃaz (No 7) heads in Liverpool's first goal against Manchester United
Luis DÃaz strikes twice as dominant Liverpool win at Manchester United
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Here we come to a pertinent off‑field question as well. To witness the 20-year-old Toby Collyer being asked to replace the Brazilian at half-time for a Premier League debut is no calling card of the slick strategy the Ineos revolution is supposed to bring. If Collyer appeared lost, the greater issue is how United could enter this encounter with their fiercest rivals two days after the market closed with only one senior holding midfielder (Casemiro) eligible to play, after having all summer to fix the glaring hole in Ten Hag’s squad.
Beforehand, Manuel Ugarte, the manager’s new £42m defensive midfielder, was paraded. Bought to dislodge Casemiro, he arrived too late for clearance, and you have to wonder why the deal was so delayed, especially given the 32-year-old’s decline.
In July, during pre-season training at UCLA, Casemiro was spied flinging himself around to make last-ditch tackles. A mark of desperation, this proved an augury of the sad tale of his first half as his disintegration cost United two Luis DÃaz goals. In added time of the first period, boos greeted Casemiro’s latest error, a mid‑range pass that went to precisely no teammate and bounced into acres of Liverpool turf. What followed was a hang of his head in sorrow, Anthony Taylor blowing for the break, and Collyer jogging on to the pitch to warm up, taking instruction from a coach, Darren Fletcher, before the second half.
Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.
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Marcus Rashford battles with Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in a game where he extended his goalless run to 12 matches for club and country. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
Casemiro was not the only culprit in red. At centre-forward, Joshua Zirkzee, on a first United start, missed clear chances and showed a clumsy touch. André Onana’s tendency to direct high balls straight out of play or to the opposition was sighted once more. The reinstated Alejandro Garnacho was ineffective, as was Bruno Fernandes, and then we arrive at the curious case of Marcus Rashford.
With Ugarte to succeed Casemiro, the bigger headache for Ten Hag is a 26-year-old whose normal state these days is becalmed and toothless: the diametric opposite of how your star forward should be.
Left out of Lee Carsley’s England squad, goalless and shotless beforehand, Rashford remains the same and has now gone 245 minutes without scoring. Retained by Ten Hag on Sunday, he needed to spark his season but failed again after a brightish beginning that featured effervescent bursts, a trip to a defensive zone to hold off Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the cleverness of thought when working a deft throw-in move with Diogo Dalot by running in behind Liverpool.
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With his lightning pace, a 200m Olympic champion physique and finishing lethal enough to score 30 times two seasons ago, Rashford’s fall-off in form is one more conundrum Ten Hag has to ponder before United return to action at Southampton on 14 September. It is a mystery that would baffle Miss Marple because after not scoring, too, in the final nine games of last term (including for England), you have to go back to 17 March and United’s breathless 4-3 FA Cup knockout of Liverpool for the last time he managed a goal.
This is an age for a man who is the club’s highest earner, whose salary of more than £350,000 a week is paid, in the main, for him to score and win matches. After being substituted 65 minutes into the 2-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend, football’s opinion factory had speculated on what might be eating him. A strand, revived from the debate over the dire eight-goal return last season, concerned Rashford’s off-pitch wellbeing. But to learn of him watching United’s Under-18s beat Liverpool’s 2-0 at Carrington on Saturday suggested a commitment to the club cause and a positive sign that the goals might flow again soon.
Not against Liverpool, as he again misfired, as too did Casemiro, and United as a whole. Already the narrative resembles last year’s one of staggering from matchday to matchday in hope rather than with belief.
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