Paul Scholes calls for Marcus Rashford’s banishment
Paul Scholes has claimed Marcus Rashford should be ‘banished’ from the club’s dressing room, amid his continued exile from the first team.
Rashford, 27, has not featured for United across their past 11 matches, with Ruben Amorim leaving out the forward from every matchday squad bar one.
Amorim originally axed Rashford because he was unhappy with the player’s attitude and performance levels in training – and the 27-year-old subsequently said he was ‘ready for a new challenge’ in a bombshell interview.
Rashford has remained with the first team group at the club’s Carrington training ground despite speculation linking him with a move away, but Amorim then took an extraordinary swipe at Rashford after the Red Devils’ win at Fulham on Sunday.
The Portuguese coach declared that he would rather pick his 63-year-old goalkeeper coach Jorge Vital than the England forward, all-but ending any hopes of his reintegration into the first team.
And former United star Scholes, speaking on The Overlap Fan Debate, brought to you by Sky Bet, took aim at Rashford and claimed Amorim must go even further in his dealings with the 27-year-old.
‘I think Marcus has let a lot of people down really,’ Scholes said. ‘With his attitude, and I think that’s what the manager is trying to say.
‘You think of the young players coming through the team, think of (Alejandro) Garnacho, they’re looking up to people like Marcus now – he’s 27 years of age, and he’s clearly not training properly.’
Scholes went onto reflect on a moment from his own career when the midfielder refused to play against Arsenal in 2001 after being left furious by Sir Alex Ferguson’s decision to only give him a late cameo in United’s previous game against Liverpool.
The 50-year-old, who was fined two weeks wages for the incident, said he regretted what he had done, but explained that he felt there were similarities to Rashford’s actions now.
‘I remember years ago when I told the manager (Sir Alex Ferguson) I didn’t want to play in that Arsenal game,’ Scholes added.
‘He said to me “the worst thing you did is let your team-mates down”, and that really stuck with me because I wasn’t really thinking about that. And now I think Marcus Rashford, he’s doing exactly the same.
‘OK, he’s not refusing to play, but in the way he’s behaving and the way he’s training, in a way he is saying I don’t want to be involved with these.
So I think the fact of letting your team-mates down in that dressing room, he should be banished from the dressing room really.
