Rio Ferdinand has criticised Erik ten Hag for his ‘baffling’ decision to leave Marcus Rashford on the bench during Manchester United’s clash against Crystal Palace. The 26-year-old forward had recently ended his goal drought with returns in victories over Southampton and Barnsley the previous week.
However, on Saturday at Selhurst Park, Ten Hag chose to start Alejandro Garnacho, Joshua Zirkzee and Amad up front. This left no room for Rashford, who was reduced to a mere 29-minute appearance.
United failed to penetrate Palace’s defence and they were held to a 0-0 draw. Ferdinand expressed his confusion over the decision to bench Rashford just as he was finding his stride.
While the former United defender acknowledges the importance of rotation this season, he questioned the wisdom of benching an in-form player like Rashford. Speaking on his YouTube channel, as quoted by the Mirror, he said: “Talking of rotation, following the game against Palace, Man United are third in terms of xG, only bettered by Man City and Liverpool.
“So they’re creating the chances but not scoring the goals. When you’ve got a man in form like Marcus Rashford, who’s coming into a bit of form and momentum which is key for any player and their confidence, I’m thinking is it the right time now to rotate?
“We’re creating chances and you take out the guy who is actually starting to score. I just look at that and think, wow. It was pleasing to see the manager come out and say it was rotation, nothing else, because there was some murmurings around it.
“But Marcus Rashford man, I think he will be sitting there thinking ‘I’ve just hit a bit of form and they’ve taken me out’. That confuses me, it’s confusing. But then again Garnacho has been one of the most productive players and has been causing havoc. And Amad is playing well. So it’s a hard one.”
Ten Hag defended his decision to drop Rashford, attributing the change to squad rotation. The United boss even labelled Jamie Redknapp ‘crazy’ after the ex-Liverpool star suggested something ‘untoward’ had occurred.
“I heard already speculation from some pundits – that’s crazy,” said Ten Hag. “I would almost say as a person you are not OK when you bring such speculation if you don’t know what’s up. This is just rotation.
“And we have many games to cover and we can only start 11 players, but we have to give all the players – if they perform – the chances and finally, of course, we will find out the players who perform better and they will play more.
“But this, it had nothing to do [with this]… I’m very happy with Marcus, with everything – defending, offensive, he scores in this moment and performs very good. So it was nothing to do with why he was on the bench, just rotation.”