Watching Sky Sports News this weekend it was hard not to feel a rush of sympathy for Flex, the YouTube pundit and transfer-chat expert. Flex seems like a nice bloke. He’s clearly well informed on players and clubs. He seems to genuinely care about this stuff.
On this occasion, however, he was thrown a genuine hospital pass, asked to stand next to a vast picture of Marcus Rashford’s head and talk about, well, basically, the entity that is Marcus Rashford. What is it? Is it good? What can it do? What do you think, Flex, about all this? Basically, Flex, just say Marcus Rashford words.
At which point Flex found himself stuck in a kind of semantic logjam, reduced to repeating the words “Marcus Rashford” over and over again, at one point 10 times in a minute, eyes a little wide, saying things like: “Marcus Rashford has to do what’s best for Marcus Rashford if Marcus Rashford feels Marcus Rashford can still contribute to what Marcus Rashford wants now for Marcus Rashford.”
This is not a criticism. Flex nailed it. He got out of there in one piece. It was in many ways an entirely logical response. Rashford’s late-breaking move to Aston Villa had yet to appear in the tree line. What else are you supposed to say about someone who is essentially just content, a brand, algorithm fodder?
There is a kind of trap here, Flex’s Conundrum, which states that it is impossible to discuss Rashford properly, because he doesn’t really play much football and isn’t that interesting when he does; at the same time it is also impossible to stop discussing him because he’s Marcus Rashford.
This is what the digital noise-world has given us. Andy Warhol defined a good photograph as one that’s in focus and of a famous person. Maybe a good modern football discussion is one that’s about a famous person, where that famous person’s name is clearly enunciated at least 10 times.
In this sense Rashford is arguably the best example of a post-truth footballer. What we have here is superstar without superstar achievements, superstar numbers or, let’s face it, superstar talent. But who is nonetheless a superstar all the same. His public existence is an extraordinary thing in an extraordinary time, when every act, every close-up, every twitch is spun out, pored over, given meaning, processed across every platform.
This is not really how humans are supposed to exist, or what sport is supposed to be. Little wonder it is hard against this backdrop to assess exactly what a loan move to Aston Villa means, or how it’s likely to work out.
The optics of Rashford’s unveiling video weren’t exactly promising. “I can’t wait for the first training session,” he said, looking heartbreakingly glum. “The sense of ambition is what is attractive,” he added later, with all the uncontainable excitement of a man discussing the slow and painful death of his beloved pet rabbit.
And yet this is clearly the right thing for Rashford, if only because he just had to get out of Old Trafford before he was swallowed entirely by the machine. A move to Villa represents clear lines. Unai Emery is a pragmatist. This is his show. There is no home-grown superstar mythology to muddy the epicure.
Rashford will be asked to train and play with good footballers under a coherent coaching system, and to play in a defined role. What he has here is a clear matrix of success or failure, with numbered instructions on how to get there. Plus the chance to find out some things that sound disarmingly basic, from what is his actual position right down to how much does he actually want to do this.
Is it a good thing for Villa? As a loan move the risks are relatively low. As are the potential rewards on the face of it. Villa have signed a player with three assists in his past 48 Premier League games, whose Emery-facing metrics – interceptions, tackles, indications of labour, effort, team play – are all way down. But this is also part of the fascination. It brings us back to the most basic question of all. Is he actually any good?
It is a question that seems uniquely hard to ask, let alone answer. In part because Rashford is so popular (and also unpopular) with Manchester United fans; because he has a machinery of extreme celebrity at his back; and because of the unavoidable political sensitivities around a footballer who has fought some vital battles via his social media channels.
One thing bleeds into another. Even asking if Rashford is actually any good can feel a bit like announcing that you also run an inflammatory alt-right YouTube channel called Why Enoch Was Right About The Great Chem-Trail Vaccination Steal.
But it is a fascinating question in its own right. If only because no other footballer presents such an obvious mismatch between celebrity status and on-field performance. That fame premium is clearly visible. Rashford is the fourth-highest-paid player in the Premier League, up there with Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland. Why? Even Casemiro, also in that company, has been world class in the past.
Whereas Rashford’s record is decent but not elite. In the Premier League he has 87 goals in 287 games, 40 assists across nine years, the same number as Jermaine Pennant, fewer than Brian Deane, Chris Brunt and Steed Malbranque. His supporters, fans, entourage, have taken to fudging this by saying, well, at his best he did have a 30-goal season. But did he?
He definitely had a 17-goal league season and 30 in 56 games overall. Either side he’s a 10-a-season man, unable to string two good years together. It used to be easy to see things like this, to allow people simply to be quite good but not great. Rashford is a talented player with excellent movement, when he actually moves, and eye-catching skills. But he’s also not as good as Cole Palmer, Harry Kane, Ollie Watkins, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Anthony Gordon, Morgan Rogers, Eberechi Eze, Dominic Solanke. He’s not as good as Bryan Mbeumo, Cody Gakpo and various other less famous people there’s no space to list here.
And yet Rashford is the conversation every time, to the extent he will now routinely complain about being the conversation, while failing to acknowledge that being undeservedly the conversation is also why he earns so much money, is so famous, and has an A-list career.
This is a new phenomenon, the interference of fame in the internal metrics of sporting merit. It can also cause problems. In this respect Rashford is an example of something else too: the Negative Value Player.
There is value in having him. But there is value in not having him too, in not carrying all that noise. Rashford signing for Villa is good news for Arsenal, who were never interested enough and have two domestic loans already. It’s good news for Paris Saint-Germain, who have built a much-fanfares new identity around jettisoning the fame-over-substance footballer.
Mainly it’s a great move for Ruben Amorim, who has found himself caught early on by a process that gets its hooks into all United managers now, the urge to go to war with one of their own players, convinced that if they can just weed out Idle Star X, this might all suddenly start to work.
This is football’s version of the Pardoner’s Tale, in which a group of drunken men decide the only way to escape death is to find death, who they have become convinced is an actual person, and to kill him, not realising this is impossible and they will naturally die in the process.
Erik ten Hag’s death, his Rashford, was Cristiano Ronaldo. Getting rid of a 37-year-old celebrity poacher wasn’t going to solve the wonky structures that led to a 37-year-old celebrity poacher being in your team in the first place. But Ten Hag still had to fight that battle just as Amorim had to fight this one. If only because he seemed stuck at this first obstacle, unable to talk about anything else in his press conference, was becoming, like Flex, a man who says “Marcus Rashford” for a living.
Who knows where this will end? Maybe when enough managers have fallen, enough idle senior players been slew, death will finally be satisfied. But it is also important to remember Rashford didn’t make any of this happen, that the Manchester United Effect was inflicted on him too.
Rashford was overplayed, overhyped, over-anointed as a very young man. His physical grace, his basic skills, his star power were misleading. He looked ready, but wasn’t ready. He never had time to grow, was expected to be The One right from the start, and did his best to keep running from there to here, as managers, team-mates, systems, regimes came and went. A saner club and a saner surrounding industry would surely have made a better Rashford.
There is still plenty of hope here. Villa are a great club, Emery an excellent manager. Rashford is talented enough to make this work. It will require discipline, hunger and a degree of personal and professional development. But he deserves a chance to find out how good he is; and above all a chance to be happy, nine years into one of the stranger sporting lives. – Guardian
