![]() ![]() As they say in public relations: the optics of a 12-hour tequila bender are never positive. ![]() Which makes you wonder this: how on Earth did his people let him go so spectacularly awry? Who was there to suggest that maybe, heading for a double-all-nighter in a Belfast nightclub may not be the wisest thing to do at a time when your performance is under such intense scrutiny. Advisers, PR gurus, social-media operators: his every move is calculated and controlled. While Best had drinking buddies, Rashford has an entourage. His only source of advice was his manager Matt Busby, whom he kept almost entirely ignorant of the downward trajectory of his affairs. Not just in the frequency and scale of Best’s escape into the bottle.īut in the fact that Rashford, unlike his great footballing forebear, is surrounded by those who should have known better than to allow him to behave like that. There is, of course, a big difference between Rashford and Best. This is the growing worry not just for Manchester United supporters, but those in charge of the club: in the manner he withers under the weight of responsibility, is this Bestie Mark II? Responsibility which landed him with a record fine levied by his club of two weeks wages, or nigh on £650,000. Not least in unconsciously channelling the way George would offer total contrition after erring, with Rashford accepting “complete responsibility for his actions”. But getting legless in full view of every camera phone in Belfast: that was something worryingly Best-like. And he has missed training before after over-sleeping. True, he has been off form before his career has long followed a topsy-turvy curve of peaks and troughs. Instead of kicking on and becoming the most explosive forward of his generation, instead of assuming leadership as a senior player for the club he has supported all his life, instead of ensuring that he finally realises the genius within him, he gives every indication of reversing into a permanent sulk.Īnd worse, just at the point when his growing army of critics are insisting that what he needs to do is knuckle down and work his way out of his malaise, he responds to the mounting pressure by getting completely bladdered, and then claiming he was too ill to attend training. ![]() He looked on top of the world as he pointed to his forehead in celebration of every goal as if to indicate he had worked out in his own mind how to overcome adversity.īut this season, adversity is back: he has netted just four times. Last season he scored 30 times in 56 appearances for club and country. ![]()
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