Manchester United’s Carabao Cup adventure this season is over after a nerve-racking 4-3 defeat to Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.
Altay Bayindir had a nightmare return to the first XI as his sloppiness allowed at least three of the four goals Spurs scored, a mountain ultimately proving too tall for Man Utd to climb.
Ruben Amorim refused to single out individuals after the game but one individual who was always going to be in focus was someone who didn’t even play.
Marcus Rashford was out of the squad again and the Man Utd manager made no efforts to hide the fact that it was not illness-related and purely a choice.
Like the Manchester Derby, there was no win to vindicate Amorim’s decision this time in terms of a pure narrative but what happened in the 70th minute vs Spurs was a bigger moment of doom for Rashford than any team selection could’ve been.
Marcus Rashford’s Man Utd issue laid bare vs Spurs
Amorim made it clear after the Manchester Derby that he kept trying to Rashford as one of the attacking midfielders behind the striker but it didn’t work.
Therefore, a call was made to shake things up and his decision was loudly vindicated in the derby victory.
The midfielders he selected- Amad, Bruno Fernandes, Mason Mount, Manuel Ugarte, and Kobbie Mainoo- outworked the City team and lived up to Amorim’s demands of “intensity”.
Rashford’s omission vs Spurs was another nail in the coffin of his Man Utd career but while the loss could have kept the door slightly ajar, the moment in the 70th minute firmly closed it shut.
United were trailing 3-1 but had the wind in their sails after Joshua Zirkzee had pulled one back for the team. The home crowd was getting tense and the players felt it too.
Spurs, ever the idealist team, were trying to start an attack from the back and the centre-back passed to Fraser Forster, who hadn’t had a convincing outing till that point.
It was a routine pass to restart the buildup, which is what Forster thought as well, taking his merry time with the ball but nobody gave that script to Amad.
The Ivorian rushed down the goalkeeper like a man possessed, inducing panic in his touch as he tried to take it away from Amad’s press.
The United attacker went full tilt into a sliding tackle to cut down Forster’s attempted clearance and was richly rewarded for his single-mindedness determination and drive.
The ball struck his sliding body and went into the goal. The score was 3-2 purely because Amad refused to give up even without a team-pressing structure behind him.
A goal made out of pure will. Therein lies the biggest issue with Rashford at Old Trafford.
Rashford is doomed under Ruben Amorim
Amorim’s comments before the game that insinuated that Rashford was not ready to cope with the demands of such a high-intensity game were a damning indictment on their own.
For Amad to hammer home that message with his goal in the 70th-minute shows Rashford is doomed under Amorim now if he wasn’t already.
The manager said after the game that he remains in his plans and will report for training. Amorim has managed the Rashford situation masterfully so far and this was yet another example of him making it clear to the player where he stands with him without completely tanking his value.
What Amad did and kept doing after being overlooked by Erik ten Hag, or what he did under Amorim when Amorim shuffled him to right wing-back to accommodate Rashford, stands in stark contrast to what Rashford did when he was dropped for a single game.
Amorim navigated Rashford saying he wants a new challenge deftly but it would be naive to think that those comments wouldn’t have infuriated him.
His selection before the game made that point vs Spurs, and then the symbol of his perfect player, Amad, hammered it home during the it.
Rashford is doomed under Amorim barring a 180-degree turn in attitude and application.
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