Steve Bruce singles out ‘petulant’ Man Utd star who needs to ‘take a look at himself’ after Newcastle defeat

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Manchester United were handed their sixth defeat of the season as they lost 1-0 to Newcastle United.

It was a lacklustre performance from Erik ten Hag‘s men. An Anthony Gordon strike was the only goal of the game, but it could have been much worse.

Manchester United were dominated throughout and didn’t have a sniff against a quite brilliant Newcastle first-team squad.

Despite the Magpies playing seriously well, it’s also evident that the Red Devils were simply not good enough.

Steve Bruce on Marcus Rashford

One player who had a particularly poor performance was Marcus Rashford.

Speaking on Studio Astro after the Newcastle fixture, former Red Devil Steve Bruce pondered as to what’s going on with Rashford at the moment.

“The first one you look at is why is Marcus Rashford looking, with how good he was and how well he played for England a few weeks ago, after ten minutes, is he not happy with playing on the right?” he said.

“Or what is wrong? We aren’t going to know about that and what’s happened behind the scenes if anything at all has happened.

“Obviously when he comes off he shows that he’s petulant and he’s not happy. But he has to take a look at himself to start with. It’s not just him though.”

Bruce is right, it isn’t just the English forward – but the stark contrast to Rashford’s form compared to last season is more than a little worrying. It’s seriously affecting the form of Manchester United.

Steve Bruce on Manchester United

It’s been two years since Manchester United have won away from home against a top-nine side – which was a statistic thrown around the Studio Astro panel after Manchester United Newcastle loss.

Steve Bruce responded to this statistic with a question:

“That’s an absolutely unbelievable stat. And that’s what I’ve just said to you, are they good enough? On tonight’s performance, certainly not. We have seen that performance far too often.

“You’re right about the manager last year, I thought he did phenomenally well out of a similar core of players, to finish in the top four and two cup finals is better than anybody expected. But now this season it seems to have unfortunately fallen off a cliff again.”

Ten Hag faces a tougher task this season – he’s set the bar high for himself. We’re not worried about the manager as of yet, but performances in December could seriously raise questions going into 2024.