Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford has been criticised for missing a glorious chance in the late stages of Erik ten Hag side’s 0-0 draw with Newcastle United.
That is by talkSPORT reporter Alex Crook, who was speaking on the talkSPORT Gameday podcast about the weekend’s Premier League action.
Despite having a multitude of chances go their way, Manchester United were unable to put away a resolute Newcastle side in what turned out to be a goalless draw at Old Trafford.
Rashford was guilty of missing a glorious chance in stoppage time, with the 98-goal United forward putting his header from point-blank range wide of the target.
And Crook described the 24-year-old’s miss as being “unforgivable” and implored the midfielder to just try and hit the target instead of being too precise.
“The second one is more unforgivable,” Crook told the talkSPORT Gameday podcast (15:25).
“That’s a free header right in front of goal.
“I think he was trying to be too clever, too precise. Just get it on target, and you’re very unlucky if you don’t score from there.”
TIF Thoughts on Crook’s comments…
He only played 18 minutes and didn’t really affect the game too positively, with two duels lost, possession lost five times, 14 touches and a 71% passing accuracy (SofaScore).
We believe that Crook is correct, and that a 46-time England forward should at the very least be hitting the target from the position he was in.
However, we do accept that there may have been an element of Rashford overthinking the header and focusing on trying to guide it past the goalkeeper, rather than just heading for goal.
Therefore, whilst we do believe that ultimately the forward should have handed Manchester United all three points, we would back him to learn from the mistake and put it right should he get a similar chance in the near future.