According to Manchester United ‘fans’, anybody who has ever played for the first team is a legend! This also appears to be the stance taken by the club itself often calling the most average of ex-players, (and some downright poor ones), by this vastly overused title.
To take the examples of two very good players in Wayne Rooney and Marcus Rashford, (very good but far from legendary), we here at WSA think there has been such a dearth of real legends that these two are as near to the ‘fans’ idea of legends as it is possible to get, (without actually being one).
Firstly, Wayne Rooney. At his best he was one of a front three which included Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo, both of whom were better than the Liverpudlian. Rooney had ONE exceptional season when he won a plethora of awards. He had a few very good seasons and a few very average ones. He broke records because of his longevity, (he was there thirteen years despite throwing his toys out of the pram and threatening to leave on a couple of occasions), and those records would have been broken a lot more easily by the likes of Ronaldo, van Nistelrooy and Andy Cole had they stayed the same amount of time.
Marcus Rashford is a slightly different kettle of fish. He is fast. He can put in a decent cross and he can shoot, (occasionally even on target). He still has, at the ripe old age of 28, annoying habits where he will take on a shot rather than pass to a player in a better position, run down blind alleys, lose possession then not track back although, since his sabbaticals with Aston Villa and Barcelona, he does seem to have slightly corrected that part of his game.
In some ways he reminds us of a player not many will have seen play live but who was instrumental in helping United win the European Cup in 1968. That was John Aston.
Similar to Rashford he was fast and, in THAT final, used his pace well against full-backs who didn’t know what to expect from him and was many people’s man-of-the-match.
Unfortunately, in what was then the First Division, full-backs knew exactly what to expect from him and dealt with him accordingly and quite easily.
Aston’s ‘skill’ was to kick the ball past the full-back on one side then use his pace to run past them on the other. Rashford tries this occasionally but generally sticks to the theory that, if he runs directly at a player, then that player will jump out of the way. This is one of the many ways in which Rashford gifts possession to the opposition. He either runs into the defender or cuts inside and is tackled. He also tends to run without any particular thought given to where he’s going. Many a time he has run the ball out of play or found himself at such an acute angle to goal that he can’t score, (this rarely stops him trying rather than passing to a team mate!).
In truth, Rashford shouldn’t really be at United at present. Aston Villa didn’t want him and Barcelona didn’t want him, (Barcelona actually signed Anthony Gordon from Newcastle United instead paying at least twice what Rashford would have cost).
So what does that say about the United man? It says he is a very long way from being a club legend. But try telling that to the current bunch of United ‘fans’ who haven’t seen any good football in their young lives!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 