England boss Gareth Southgate sends Marcus Rashford a stern warning after Man Utd star’s nightmare season hit new low
GARETH SOUTHGATE has warned under-fire striker Marcus Rashford that with “the big bucks, comes the big pressure”.
Rashford’s nightmare season hit a new low with a red card in Manchester United’s 4-3 Champions League defeat in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
It came after he was forced to apologise for attending a nightclub to celebrate his birthday hours after the 3-0 home defeat to Manchester City.
Despite Rashford’s poor form, Southgate yesterday named the £300,000-a-week striker in his latest England squad.
The Three Lions boss insisted Rashford, 26, knows how loved he is in the international set-up.
But he warned: “In the end — and respectfully — with the big bucks, comes the big pressure.
“He is the guy that got all the goals last year.”
While Rashford has scored 17 goals in 57 England caps, a greater onus falls on all-time record goalscorer Harry Kane — and Southgate believes young Dane Rasmus Hojlund can reduce the pressure at club level.
And Southgate added: “Here we’ve been able to share the goals around and maybe there’s less emphasis on just one person which I think helps them all.
“I’m sure even Harry is not thinking I’ve got to be the one to score.
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“Maybe with Hojlund scoring now at United, that will help but you know over a period of time Marcus has scored goals so that’s going to happen again.
“It’s just a case of getting a couple and then he’ll be off and running.”
Rashford hit 30 goals in 56 appearances for United last term but has managed only one in 15 this term — in September’s 3-1 defeat at Arsenal.
But he netted a cracker for England in last month’s win over Italy and has generally played well for his country.
In his press conference at Wembley, Southgate said he had not spoken to Rashford about his difficult month and that the forward knows “we love him”.
In the end — and respectfully — with the big bucks, comes the big pressure.
Southgate on Rashford
The 53-year-old was later asked if Rashford was the kind of player who needed that reassurance.
Southgate replied: “Yeah… well you don’t always know with Marcus whether that would be what he wants or not, but that’s how it is.
“Clearly his club form hasn’t been where he would want it to be, he hasn’t scored the goals that he scored last year.
“But we’re selecting him on the basis that he did really well in June for us and the next squad was only a couple of games into the season.
“We were really happy with how he played in Scotland and then really happy with how he played against Italy.
“So as we’ve got him in a really good place with us, there was no way we thought of leaving him out.”