Marcus Rashford CLOSE to Aston Villa loan move 👀 'He wants to be wanted' - Nedum Onuoha | ESPN FC

So that finishes Wolves 2 Aston Villa 0. We knew obviously that Champions League action would take its toll on Aston Villa. Maybe not as much as it has. When you take a look at games after the Champions League, they've just won one of those ties. In the rest of the games they've won nine out of 16. Stevie, what happened today? They couldn't break Wolves down. A team that hadn't been able to defend. At all? At all all season and they couldn't break them down yet. I think you have to give Wolves credit. They got blocks. Gould made a couple of saves. They got men behind the ball. They made good decisions when they had to defensively. I don't remember a real clear chance that Villa produced. Of course it doesn't help when you're only centre forward leaves the field at half time. So I think you've got to chalk this one down to Wolves. Wolves defended for their lives. Defended, as I said, unlike the way they have all season and looked sharp on the break and scored two but actually could have had more. Is it fatigue? Maybe mental fatigue. I don't think as far as physical fatigue comes in. I don't think that's going to be the issue as such because bearing in mind they did play at home in midweek as well. So there is the chance to sort of get home recovered straight away after that game. But I think the manager himself he knows that for some it's just getting quite stale. At times he's tried to make changes like with Bogard, like with Garcia but it didn't work today. And going to go and play against Wolves I think Stevie's right. Like Wolves in terms of attack they're a good side but they conceded basically three goals a game throughout the season. Conceded I think 20 goals from set pieces this year and Villa couldn't break that down. I think that's going to be alarming from their standpoint because they're still pushing to be in the Champions League again next year. And if you're going to do that you've got to go to places like Wolves and find a way to get a result. If you can do that you need someone who's going to score goals. Duran has obviously gone to Saudi Arabia. Ollie Watkins we don't know how bad that injury is. So here comes Jules super Marcus Rashford. The cavalry's coming. What a move this is. I mean I don't think any of us would have seen this coming a week ago even. But it's not done yet but it will be done tomorrow, maybe Monday. They've got plenty of time still. I'm not really sure. Personally I'm a bit skeptical about this move. I won't lie. I don't know what kind of shape Marcus Rashford is but I've been told that he's been training on his own. He can't be much fit that's for sure. He hasn't played for a long time now. I think everything that happened around him in the last month or so, let's put it that way, what Amorim said, his own mental space, everything, his own position within Football Club as much as United, with his own desire to move on and to go somewhere else to have a new challenge, all of that has been very difficult on him to be fair. I don't know how long it takes you even if you join a new club to get back ready to play in the Premier League for example or in the Champions League in his case. So I don't know. It's obviously a massive investment from an Aston Villa point of view because yes it's a loan but they will pay most of his wages and he's on massive, massive money. So we'll have to see. I just don't know. Villa for me is not a team that plays on Marcus Rashford's strength so this is something that again we'll have to see. They've got in Ramsey a really good young player who plays on the left-hand side because really Rashford is not coming to play as a centre-forward. He doesn't like playing there, that's not his best position. He's coming there to play on the left-hand side where Ramsey who was injured but he's doing a good job as we saw against Celtic in the Champions League for example. So I don't know. I'm a bit sceptical and a bit curious as well to see how all this pans out. Joel says this is going to be a failure, Nadim. Do you agree? Yeah that's exactly what he said, yeah for sure. I don't know. I think for Rashford he probably is in a position where if he wants to feel like he's wanted, you know, but I think the fact that he's going to Emery as the manager, Emery's standards will still be the same as Ann Williams. So I think he has to change something within himself and I just find it peculiar that he's just going to go out on loan and then in the summer just go back to United. To Joel's point, as a player how much time do you need to get match fit considering what Rashford's gone through over the last couple of months? I think being out for the six weeks or however long it's been, I think it will be an issue but I don't think it's as bad as say missing the first half of the season. He has got football in his legs and he'll want to make a difference. I think the individual training, I don't think it does enough really to get you that shot but I think for me Emery's going to take his time and then make sure that he sort of hits the ground running and finds a way to get into the side and we'll see some good football from him but again it's just a really peculiar move in my opinion. Joel's used the phrase sceptical but curious and I'll echo that. Listen, I think Marcus Rashford is an incredible footballer but I felt a move somewhere else, completely away from England might just save him better. Some of the frustrations that he's endured. The one thing I will say about this which makes it curious because on paper to me it doesn't make much sense is Unai Emery and given the Villa team that he took over and how he was able to turn that around without kind of wholesale changes, certainly not to start with, makes me believe in Unai Emery's ability to get the best out of underperforming players and there's no question Marcus Rashford right now is an underperforming player which is why I'm trending more curious than sceptical. Oh I like curious Shaka. What are you Stevie, curious or sceptical? It's an expensive gamble is what it is and you're going to a team, Unai Emery's teams, every single one of them has to put a shift in. So we've been sat here for how many years, last couple of years at least, whilst Marcus Rashford has done nothing talking about what he gives to the team when he's not on the ball which has been zero and he's gone to a team that expects every single one to do his stuff and the fact that Watkins is now injured and we don't know how bad or how slight it may be, he's maybe going to have to play centre forward which he doesn't want to do so that's not a great start either. They've got to hope that new surroundings, new voice just kicks things into gear but it's an expensive gamble big time. you