Footage of Marcus Rashford’s ‘pressing’ for Manchester United against Luton goes viral, with the forward facing criticism for allowing Ross Barkley to breeze past him
Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford came under fire for his ‘pressing’ against Luton Town on Sunday.
While Erik ten Hag‘s side left Kenilworth Road with all three points, but the narrow 2-1 win, and some of the individual performances, highlighted where Man United will have to improve if they want to close in on Aston Villa and Tottenham above them.
One individual moment circulated on social media, which showed Rashford trying to deny Luton’s Ross Barkley in his bid to advance up the pitch late on in the game.
With Barkley in possession of the ball, Rashford pressed – but still kept a reasonable distance from the former Chelsea man, without ever making a tackle for the ball.
When the 30-year-old midfielder found he could not get around Rashford to the forward’s right, Barkley back-tracked, and took it to the 26-year-old’s left, where he was able to breeze round the Man United man.
Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford came under fire for his ‘pressing’ against Luton Town
The clip of Rashford attempting to close down Luton’s Ross Barkley went viral on social media
While the whole process killed valuable seconds as Luton desperately searched for a late equaliser against Man United, it did not impress Man United fans, as Barkley was able to comfortably manoeuvre around him without feeling any pressure.
One clip was shared on X (formerly Twitter) with the joke caption: ‘Top pressing by Rashford. Don’t know how Ross Barkley got tour him’.
‘Would swap him for a bag of strawberry bon bons’, one user wrote in response to the video of Rashford, while another said: ‘A Jaffa cake would be a better distraction to Barkley then Rashford’.
One user said ‘If it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny. The state of that’, while another added: ‘Broooo Rashford was looking like what I dunno’.
A fifth said that Rashford ‘trusts his teammates’, but accompanied it with a rolling on the floor laughing emoji.
Rasmus Hojlund was the difference maker at Kenilworth Road, opening the scoring within the 40 seconds, before being in the right place to score an ‘outrageous’ goal with his chest moments later.
The Dane insisted he intended to score that goal, despite some claims it was an accident that led to the ball trickling into the net.
He told Sky Sports: ‘Yes [I meant it]. I saw my body. I was surprised it was such a good goal to be fair. I’m trying to train like this.
Rasmus Hojlund extended his goal scoring streak to six matches with a brace at Luton Town
Hojlund’s early goal made him the youngest player to score in six consecutive Premier League games, 14 days after his 21st birthday, surpassing Joe Willock‘s previous record of 21 years and 272 days old.
Manchester United host Fulham in the Premier League next Saturday.
