Marcus Rashford could absolutely play for Manchester United again, but only if Ruben Amorim stops ‘pointing fingers’ at Old Trafford and resigns.
Title nopesIt has been fun watching certain sections of the media tie themselves in knots trying to manufacture some sort of jeopardy in a title race Liverpool have had won for months. But really this is a bit daft now and should probably stop.
No, John Cross, beating Fulham didn’t ‘keep Arsenal’s fading title hopes alive’. No, Daily Mirror standfirst, it didn’t ‘keep title dream alive’ either. We all know Arsenal’s ‘dream, best-case scenario’ from here is to still finish second. Your website told us so.
Cross’ report is used by sister publication the Daily Star too, and they giddily, breathily tell us that Arsenal ‘moved to within nine points of Premier League leaders Liverpool’ while pretending that isn’t still a massive gap having played a game more with only a few weeks of the season left, and a massive Real Madrid-shaped Champions League distraction emerging on the horizon.
It is doubly weird because in his opinion piece, Cross writes that the game ‘felt like at times more of a testimonial match’, partly because Liverpool are ‘already out of sight at the top’.
It doesn’t particularly sound as though the title dream is still alive.
All about that race‘For the second year running, Arsenal’s title challenge was undone by Aston Villa at the Emirates…you could argue their title challenge lasted all of three days’ – John Cross, Daily Mirror, January 19.
‘The only saving grace for Arsenal is they banked enough goals and points before all their big guns went down injured to as good as secure a top four finish otherwise they really would be in trouble’ – John Cross, Daily Mirror, February 26.
‘Arsenal could not lift themselves and they dropped points for the third game running to fall further behind in a title race they have long since surrendered’ – John Cross, Daily Mirror, March 9.
‘Bukayo Saka made a dream return after his three-month injury lay-off to keep Arsenal’s fading title hopes alive’ – John Cross, Daily Mirror, April 1.
Considering ‘you could argue their title challenge lasted all of three days’ back in mid-January, fair play for pretending it remains a thing into early April after writing it off in February and March.
READ MORE: Bukayo Saka makes dream return but Arsenal face early end to 24/25 season after latest injury blow
Credentials neededAn even stranger match report take resides on the back page of the Daily Mail, who sent Chris Wheeler to the City Ground to watch Anthony Elanga embarrass Manchester United.
‘Anthony Elanga scored one of the goals of the season as Nottingham Forest confirmed their Champions League credentials with victory over Manchester United.’
Forest beat Manchester City in March, thrashed Brighton 7-0 in February and have resided in the top five since early December. But it was definitely a win over 13th-placed Manchester United in April to send them ten points clear of sixth which confirmed they might have a shot at qualifying for the Champions League.
Blame differenceAnother Manchester United defeat means another opportunity for responsibility to be apportioned by Ruben Amorim; it does often seem to be his favourite part of the job.
And the Daily Mirror website shows absolutely no shame in having their cake and eating it with this selection of stories, the first of which is:
‘Ruben Amorim knows who is to blame after Anthony Elanga embarrassed Man Utd’
The only Amorim quotes included are here:
“We had a lot of shots on goal, we pushed the opponent to the last third, but in the last third we had a lack of quality. We need to win games and we deserved more in this game, that is clear, but it is our fault and we need to be better in the last third. We should have won this game, not even drawn, but in the end we have lost three points. We know the characters of the team and one goal can put them in one situation they love. We helped them win three points.”
It turns out that Amorim ‘knows who is to blame’ for his team losing a game and it is apparently the literal entire team. Thanks for that.
But then ‘Ruben Amorim points finger at Manchester United star for ‘trying too much” elsewhere, so this one is actually on Alejandro Garnacho. Except that is fairly obviously not an actual criticism whatsoever so stop being weird.
Yet ‘Ruben Amorim points finger at Man Utd players and hits back at critics’ in a third story, which uses the same quotes as the first but with a little more padding as that hasty transcribing job from his post-match interview clearly wasn’t good enough.
So who is to blame for Manchester United still being a bit rubbish? Erm…Manchester United.
Rash decisionAnd with this being a day of the week, it was only ever a matter of time before Marcus Rashford was brought up for no apparent reason.
‘Marcus Rashford could return to Man Utd on one condition as Ruben Amorim makes decision’ is a tantalising Daily Mirror website headline and fair play to them for it.
What a shame, then, that it’s a massive dose of complete and utter balls.
‘There is still a scenario in which Marcus Rashford could play for Manchester United again,’ writes Simon Mullock, ‘but it involves Ruben Amorim not being the manager at Old Trafford next season.’
So there’s not really a scenario in which Marcus Rashford could play for Manchester United again at all. Despite his best efforts to become at least sack-adjacent, Amorim will absolutely be the manager at Old Trafford next season. It is nonsense to pretend otherwise.
‘Unless Amorim is sacked or resigns this summer then Rashford’s 426th appearance in a United shirt was his last.’
And those things are definitely not going to happen. So what are we doing here? Why is ‘Marcus Rashford won’t play for Manchester United again under this manager’ a sudden revelation in early April when he underlined his desire to leave in December and was loaned out to Aston Villa with an option to buy in January?
The answer is basically that Mullock has been only slightly stitched up by a headline which wilfully ignores the rest of his opinion piece, which goes into great depth about how Amorim will be happy with Rashford’s performances out on loan and the 27-year-old’s biggest contribution to this rebuild will be the money he brings in through a sale this summer.
It’s still a bizarre opening paragraph to such a story, but that headline really is quite abysmal in any case.
Lawro laughsMark Lawrenson has not graced these pages for some time because something, something old white man, something, something, woke. But he is still doing Premier League predictions for Paddy Power and he is still unintentionally hilarious.
The great man envisages a win for Newcastle this midweek because ‘Brentford are not great on the road’.
Nowadays you’d get locked up for pointing out they have by far the best away record in the Premier League in 2025, winning all five of their games on the road, scoring 14 goals and conceding just two.