by For those with longer memories, there was something eerie about the city where Marcus Rashford went off the grid last week.
According to The sunfor two nights in Belfast he indulged in a total hedonistic binge, a “12 hour tequila bender”, a session which ended with him so drunk he had to be helped into bed by the waiter who invited him back to his hotel. room.
Of all the places for a young Manchester United footballer with the world at his feet to go into the dark side, it couldn’t be said that it all happened in George Best’s hometown.
Better, it will be said, the pressures that came with stardom found his team so hard that they finally crushed him, his talent diminished, his purpose diminished.
Rashford is nowhere near the level of self-destruction that undermined his predecessor as one of United’s great talents. But the parallels have found a new, sudden and unexpected twist. And they are becoming more uncomfortable.
Not least because his latest escape came at a time when Rashford’s performance in games has been on a most frustrating decline. For the past six months, a player who is almost identical to Best in his ability to light up the field has been working for the past six months. Nothing seems to be working for him.
His attempts to hit opponents always fail, his confidence is gone, his body language offers a new vocabulary of hunched shoulders and resignation sentences.
Then there is the lack of goals. Last season he scored 30 times in 56 appearances for club and country. He looked on top of the world as he pointed to his chest as he celebrated each goal as if to indicate that he had worked out in his own mind how to overcome the issue.
But this season, adversity is back: he has only netted four times. Instead of kicking on and being the most explosive forward of his generation, instead of accepting leadership as a senior player for the club he has supported all his life, instead of making sure he finally realizes the genius within him , it gives every sign of a reversal. into a permanent sulk.
And even worse, just when his growing army of critics insists that what he needs to do is to buckle down and work his way out of his malaise, he responds to the increasing pressure through his bladder get full, and then claiming it was too big. ill attend training.
True, he is out of form before; his career has long followed a turbulent curve of peaks and troughs. And he has missed training in the past after oversleeping. But to rely on every camera phone in Belfast: that was a concern Best-like.
Especially in relation to the way George would unconsciously carry on after losing, with Rashford taking “full responsibility for his actions”. Responsibility brought him to a higher fine imposed by his club of two weeks’ wages, or almost £ 650,000.
This is the growing concern, not only for Manchester United supporters, but for those in charge of the club: the way it gets under the weight of responsibility, is this Bestie Mark II?
Of course, there is a big difference between Rashford and Best. Not only in frequency and scale escape Best into the bottle.
But the fact that Rashford, unlike his great football ancestors, is surrounded by those who should know better than to let him behave. Best was finally alone. His only source of advice was his manager Matt Busby, who he kept almost completely ignorant of all the way down in his affairs.
While Best had drinking buddies, Rashford has company. Consultants, PR gurus, social media operators: every move is calculated and controlled. Or should be.
What makes you wonder about this is: how on earth did his people let him go so scary? Who was there to suggest that it might not be the wisest thing to do at a time when your performance is under intense scrutiny. As they say in public relations: the optics of a 12-hour tequila bender is never positive.
He always had people. Signed by the Roc Nation management agency run by rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z, Rashford rose to national treasure status in his early 20s by campaigning for free school meals under the watchful eye of Kelly Hogarth, an executive at the company. At her peak, she supported the Government in turn with the soaring precision of the social media output she christened.
When Rashford parted ways with Roc Nation in 2021, he urged Hogarth to stay with him. But, interestingly, she didn’t stay long. Caroline McAteer, the famous football PR who helped David Beckham recover his image after his 1998 World Cup ouster, was unceremoniously replaced last summer.
But then, as his change of senior advisers seems to indicate, he finds it hard to trust. He leaves important questions to those he has known throughout his life. His finances, for example, are in the hands of DN May Sports Management, which is run by his brother Dane and step-brother Dwain Maynard. It was Dane who accompanied him when he was called to disciplinary talks with United manager Erik ten Hag following his Ulster transfer.
Concerns about their ability to influence Rashford were not eased when they failed to pass the FA’s new agency exams. As one long-term United analyst put it The Telegraph: “An entire village depends on Marcus’ salary.”
Which is substantial: the contract he signed last summer would be worth more than £78m if he sees it through to completion in 2028.
But, despite the scale of his corporate base, the player’s mental well-being appears to be no less than carefully guarded. PR people, financial advisors, agents; they are of little use when he needs a shoulder to cry on.
When he was a little boy, he drew all his support from his mother, Melanie Maynard. She was his role model, someone who worked endless hours to keep food on the table for her family. It was his work ethic that propelled him through the Manchester United Academy, where he was known as the hardest-working tackler of his and many of his generation.
It was her approach to life that made him seize his opportunity with such determination, as when he scored twice on his United debut. It was to his faith that he turned when he was so horribly trolled by online trolls after missing a penalty in the Euro 2021 final.
And it was their Christian values that underpinned their lockout campaign for children’s school meals. That’s why those who criticized him when his form first began to dive for taking his eye off the ball in favor of good causes: for Rashford, doing the right thing was a vital part.
It is noteworthy, however, that apart from his mother and two sisters, there is no other woman to meet. His relationship with his school sweetheart, Lucia Loi, took social media to the top when their engagement was announced on Instagram in May 2022 with a series of staged pictures of them standing amongst hearts and candles on a beach in Dubai.
But they have since split. And those who know Rashford quietly suggest that his fear now is not knowing whether potential girlfriends will find the most attractive feature of his wallet.
So, although he is surrounded by those whose income he benefits from his success, like George Best his struggles with form and confidence are his and his own. True, we have seen it before. A back injury saw his form drop dramatically in the 2021-22 season. He bounced back.
But again this season, just when a team that’s been in a slump has needed him the most, he hasn’t been able to shake the funk. Now comes his latest youthful indiscretion.
From national treasure to blind drunk in Belfast: it’s a career arc that he needs to reset quickly. Ultimately, how he deals with that decline will determine our opinion of him.
