Marcus Rashford and England
Manchester United's star could find himself on the outside looking in at England's Euro 2024 squad and that... makes sense
I try to make it a point not to react to the internet. It’s a place filled with lots of good stuff, even more dumb stuff, and worst of all far too many trolls. It’s a battle you will just never win. Unfortunately, I’m about to react to the internet.
The March international break is the final chance for managers to get a look at their squads before Euro 2024 this summer. About a week before the March international break, The Athletic asked six of their writers to predict who Gareth Southgate would take to Germany if the squads had to be chosen now.
Between all six writers, none of them selected Manchester United talisman Marcus Rashford. Rashford owns 60 England caps and has scored 17 international goals, including three at the 2022 World Cup.
The article came out during a bit of a tumultuous time between Rashford and the media. Just a week prior Rashford had penned an article in The Players Tribune calling out the recent over the top criticism that had been directed towards him.
When this Athletic article came out, United fans immediately took to X (now Twitter) to scream about this was all a media driven “agenda” against Rashford. Never mind that six people independently reaching the same conclusion probably says something about that conclusion; or the fact that two of the writers polled in the article are Manchester United writers - one of which has a professional relationship with Rashford. This was an agenda!
At just 26 years old, Rashford is right in the peak of his career. His 17 goals for his country is the second highest total among all current England players. Including him in the England squad shouldn’t be more than an afterthought.
And yet, not including him in the England team also makes perfect sense?
The most important thing to remember is that international football is not an all-star team or the 23 guys currently in the best form for their country. International football is it’s own ecosystem. If you want to be successful in international football you need to have a squad, you need to have a style that you want to play - which in turn is going to influence who is in your squad.
Having a squad goes beyond naming 23 players to your team. You have to have a set collective group working together towards achieving goals over a two or four year period. Those guys make up the backbone of your team. Even if they suffer a dip in form for their club, they’re still going to get called in.
This is one of the areas that England manager Gareth Southgate has done a good job in.
For any given international team selection barring injuries about 16-19ish players are already pre-determined. Whether starters or reserves these guys know their roles and are the core members of their squad. That leaves just four to six spots (update: now it’s about 7-9 spots due to expanded squads) open for currently in form players or that 19-20 year old having his breakout season for his club.
Suffice to say right now Marcus Rashford may not be among those 16-19 players. That shouldn’t be all that surprising. Rashford has never been the most integral player for England. He’s only started eight matches over the last four years. Hell, he’s only started 26 matches since making his debut in 2016. While it’s true that non-starters will still be part of that integral core group of players, it’s also the ones not starting matches who are the first to drop out of that group.
Once your squad is set, you can figure out how you’re going to want to play. Regardless of how good they are, throwing your best 11 players onto the pitch together and hoping they’ll figure it out and adapt to each other doesn’t work in international football. There’s too many variables at play and the biggest one is usually there’s only one ball.
What does work at the international level is playing a system that maximizes the abilities of your best player. Take what your best player does best, put him in a position that will allow him to do that the most, and go from there.1 If this is going to cause your third or fourth best player to not fit stylistically into the team, then your third or fourth best player isn’t going to play.
For England, that’s been Harry Kane. He’s the first name and every decision works backwards from there. Kane is going to handle your scoring, so you need creators in the team next to him. He’s not going to do much defending so you need to make up for that somewhere else. You need players to fill those roles. You need backups for those players.
That’s why someone like Kalvin Phillips has remained in the England squad despite hardly stepping on the pitch for Manchester City. For a long time there really just wasn’t another holding midfielder who could be a backup for Declan Rice. With players like Kobbie Mainoo and soon Adam Wharton breaking through, Phillips was immediately discarded.
In previous years there wasn’t really a question over how Rashford fit. At the 2018 World Cup Southgate deployed a back three with wingbacks to supply the width. An industrious midfield sat behind Kane and a support striker. In 2018 that support striker spot was between Rashford and Raheem Sterling.
Southgate chose Sterling. It doesn’t really matter whether that was the right call or not because we can’t change the past. Looking back it’s not a particularly egregious call. Rashford was coming off a seven goal five assist Premier League campaign that was particularly front loaded. He only started three Premier League matches in 2018 and just seven in all competitions. Sterling was coming off an 18 goal 11 assist campaign with three goals and five assists since March, this didn’t seem like a tough decision.
Three years later at Euro 20202 the England team looked a little bit different. There was less back three and more 4-2-3-1 slightly changing the dynamic of the forward line. Southgate was now using more of a typical winger on the right. On the left, Luke Shaw would push up to provide the width while Sterling operated as a second forward coming off the left - Rashford’s exact best position.
This time around the case for who to start wasn’t as clear. Rashford was coming off a good not great campaign, but Sterling’s wasn’t particularly great either. Two things worked in Sterling’s favor: Rashford was carrying an injury that severely limited him coming into the Euros, and Sterling had pretty much nailed down that place in the team. He’d started 17 of England’s 21 competitive matches since the World Cup.
Rashford didn’t feature much in this tournament, mostly due to his injury but also because of the thing that’s now plaguing his England career. What was his role?
At Euro 2020 when things weren’t working, rather than bring on Rashford to replace Sterling Southgate often opted to move Sterling to the right wing and bring on Jack Grealish to provide more creativity from the left. Rashford was left to essentially spell Harry Kane as the team’s center forward - not his best position.
By the 2022 World Cup there was a general consensus that Rashford wasn’t considered to be a starter for England. His pre-World Cup form wasn’t doing anything to change that either3.
Rashford was reportedly unhappy with his playing time at Euro 2020, but as I wrote back then, there was a clear reason Southgate turned to every player he did instead of Rashford. Fast forward to now and we’re in the exact same position. Where exactly does he fit with this team?
The attack is still built around Kane. He’s going to be the guy tasked with leading you in scoring therefore you need to surround him with players that complement that, rather than say a secondary goal scorer.
Bakayo Saka is turning into a superstar on the right wing. He does winger-y things that will support Kane, while also being able to cut onto his left foot and shoot the way Rashford does from the left. Rashford isn’t playing over him.
From there it gets a little more interesting. Southgate has been a conservative manager4 who is often accused of using the same players throughout his tenure. However there has been evolution in his team. The way England played at the 2018 World Cup was far different to how they played at Euro 2020 which was different to how they played at the 2022 World Cup.
At Euro 2024 they’re going to evolve even more. A telltale sign of this has been that Southgate favorite Raheem Sterling hasn’t even been called into the squad since the World Cup in Qatar. You can say that’s due to poor club form but remember, England is it’s own squad. As Southgate has shown, if you play a crucial role for England your club form doesn’t matter. Sterling is gone because the role Sterling plays is gone.
At Euro 2024 England look like they’re going be built less around Harry Kane and more around both Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. A changing of the guard so to speak.
Bellingham is going to have a lot of freedom in midfield, which is going to change what you’re looking for in a left winger. He’s going to need to link up with Kane, while also doing a lot of defensive work, and likely needing to tuck inside to cover for Bellingham. Phil Foden just had the best year of his career but more importantly, the tactical versatility he has from playing at Manchester City - playing anywhere across the attacking midfield positions - make him the most ideal fit for this role. The only knock against him is he’s left footed!
Where does Rashford fit in all that?
With Foden and Saka, you’re not looking at him to come in and play right wing. You’re not going to look to shoehorn him in as a substitute for Kane because you’ve now got Ollie Watkins. Watkins had the second most non-penalty goals in the league this season but more importantly, he’s far better at playing down the middle than Rashford is.
On the left side, if you’re going for a like for like change, James Maddison fits that spot better. Plus he offers you the versatility to move into the no. 10 role if that’s what you’re looking for. Jack Grealish also offers you more creativity than Rashford, which is important when you’re playing with a focal point striker like Kane or Watkins.
That doesn’t mean that Grealish is “better” than Rashford. Personally, I think Rashford is the better all around player but they’re two completely different players. The difference between the two is that the elite traits that Grealish brings better compliments the rest of the team than the traits Rashford has.
Grealish is one of the best shot creators in Europe, but he’s unrivaled when it comes to carrying the ball in the final third and drawing fouls. That’s a very good skill to have when you have a team that’s as dangerous as England are from set pieces.
On the other side, Rashford’s best skill is being an outlet and being able to get behind defenders. Very few in the world are better than Rashford in this area but what if that opportunity doesn’t come around?
There’s a good chance England line up with a midfield of Declan Rice, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jude Bellingham. That setup is a statement that England would be planning to have more of the ball than they did at previous tournaments.
Rashford thrives in the chaos. He’s much weaker against set defenses where you’d benefit from the on-ball skills of Saka, Foden, or Grealish. If you’re anticipating some chaos, you want Rashford.
If you’re anticipating matches where you have more of the ball and have to break teams down5, Rashford wouldn’t be your first option off the bench in any position across the front three. Sure there could still be room for him, but now you’re talking about the 25th or 26th player in the squad. These are the spots in the squad that are based off recent form. From that perspective, giving tournament experience to the in-form Anthony Gordon - who also does defensive work - doesn’t seem crazy.
You also have to factor in that the 25th or 26th player in the squad isn’t going to get a lot of minutes. The players in those spots can’t just be ok with that, they need to be happy with it. Having just one unhappy player in the group could be detrimental to a team in a tournament.
Is Rashford one of the best England attackers out there? Of course he is. But like several of England’s attacking players, he’s got a very specialized skillset. If that skillset doesn’t complement the other players on the pitch or the style you’re playing, leaving him home isn’t crazy. The reality is he just hasn’t been enough of a game changer at the international level.
While United fans were screaming “agenda” over six writers leaving out Marcus Rashford, it was the lack of another name that really showed how little agenda there was. Only three of the six Athletic writers selected Cole Palmer.
Cole Palmer has been the best signing in the Premier League this season. He is single handily the only reason a bad Chelsea side are even mediocre. The Stathead (powered by Fbref) stat of the article6 shows that Palmer’s 39 goals and assists in all competitions are the most of any player aged 21 and under in Europe this season
It seems like a no-brainer for Cole Palmer to be part of the England squad and yet only three of the six writers chose him!
Of course Palmer ended up getting called up in March, carried his great form through the rest of the season and is now demanding a place in the starting XI for this tournament.
Form matters, but your role does too.
This is much easier to do with smaller countries where the talent pool isn’t as deep. It’s much more difficult with the bigger nations where you may have elite talent all over the place.
Played in 2021
Rashford’s sensational form during the 2022-23 campaign really took off after the World Cup. Actually, with three goals in extremely limited minutes you can argue it started at the World Cup
Too conservative for my taste
Such as the quarterfinal of the 2022 World Cup against France.
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