Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has already come under direct fire from Ian Wright, the former Arsenal striker, over his inexcusable handling of Rashford in Monday Night Club on BBC Radio 5 Live:
“Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said he knew Marcus Rashford was struggling and played him against Wolves – now he’s out for three months. We’re talking about an explosive player that’s going to need to be right.”
He added, “Solskjaer is under intense pressure to get United back where they were and he’s thought about himself before he thought about the player. Solskjaer has put himself above Marcus Rashford’s health.”
Not surprisingly, Solskjaer has recently denied that Rashford had gone into the Wolves match with a single stress fracture. This was right after United lost 2-0 to Liverpool on Sunday, which saw an immediate escalation of events leading to former captain Gary Neville calling for the executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, to be sacked.
Perhaps the Norwegian senses a noose beginning to tighten around his neck hence the sudden 180-degree roundabout turn. Rashford’s double stress fracture resulting from his collision with Matt Doherty could possibly keep him out of active action for 3 months or even more. This consequence doesn’t augur well at all for the United side and Solskjaer is only too well aware of that. The repercussions for not having Marcus Rashford in the squad for that considerable period of precious time are untold and far reaching, to say the least.
“I never put myself before the team,” Solskjaer intoned in his soliloquy on Tuesday. “I always put the team and the club before anything else. “Marcus has had minor discomfort in his back since the Burnley game, two weeks before this game (Wolves).
“That is part of what you do for Man Utd,” he postulated. “Every time you play, you put your body on the line. “I’ve suffered some injuries for the club and that is what you are proud to do when you are a Man Utd player.”
Obviously, Ian Wright wasn’t the only one who spoke out about Rashford’s injury. The England striker had been forewarned by two former players who had suffered stress fractures to the back before who had cautioned him not to rush his return, fearing the repercussion that he could be left with a possible weak spot he would regrettably be forced to come to terms with for the rest of his career.
“I had a similar injury, a stress fracture in my lower back. I was out with that for four months,” Robin van Persie, the former United and Arsenal striker said.
“You can’t really do much, you have to just rest and let it heal. But it is a difficult one because it always stays a little bit like a weak spot. Even now, it is not that I’m in pain or something, but it’s a sensitive area. So you have to be really careful with that.
The irony of it all is that others not under the Manchester United banner are openly voicing their concerns for the welfare of Marcus Rashford. Shouldn’t the manager himself be the first one to bear the weight of this concern and responsibility instead of trying to wriggle his way out of the awkward situation now?