Interview Special! Marcus Rashford's Aston Villa Move | Manchester United Fan View

Welcome to All Villa, No Filla. Remember to subscribe to the show, follow us on Spotify, Apple YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Aston Villa, the mighty villa, have signed Marcus Rashford from Manchester United on loan until the end of the season. Arguably the most eye-catching signing of the entire transfer window. A real shock to be honest. To talk all about that is a United broadcaster and season ticket holder, Ian Barber. A good friend of mine, known him for many, many years. One of the biggest United fans you'll ever meet in your life. So Ian, what do you think about Rashford moving down to the villa? I think it's sad, but it isn't that sad. I mean, he was at United all of his life, local lad, great story, all the stuff he did off the pitch, which was amazing. But if you look at what he's done on the pitch in the past 12 months, it's not been great. The managers challenged him and said, I just want to see you train better. I want to see you live better. And from what we're told, he's not done it. We've seen the trips that he made abroad just a couple of days after the manager came in. He was in America watching basketball. It's like, is that really a good impression to leave for your new manager? From what I hear, I think he's surrounded by the wrong people. I think his social life has probably taken over football. So I think it's probably a good move for him. My only concern is, is it enough of a move? I think he's hoping to stay in the North West and commute to Birmingham, from what I read. I just wonder if that's enough of a break from the sort of life that he's in at the moment. But I hope he works out for him because it's in our interest, you know, if he bags a load of goals at Villa, then the transfer could be potentially a good one. Yeah, I mean, you know, at his absolute best, how good is Marcus Rashford? I would say in a world where there's not actually that many good strikers, at his best, he's right up there with the best in the world. But we haven't seen that for two, three years now. And I just don't know why that is, other than the fact that maybe he's not living the best life away from football. He's not been very happy. I don't know what the issues are that Marcus has had, but his mind hasn't been in the right place on the pitch, that's for sure. He's been lazy, he's looked lethargic, he's looked no confidence in front of goal. Some of that's probably on us as United fans. I think there's a lot of pressure being a local lad. We're desperate for him to do well. Anytime Rashford made a mistake on the pitch, he was Rowans all round Oxford. I've heard him booed, I've heard him slagged off, called all sorts of names, so maybe we played into it a little bit. But if Villa can get him firing, and clearly Emery thinks he can, then you might have a real, real player on your hands again. Yeah, you know, when I watch Rashford, obviously I don't watch Manchester United as intensely as I do, you know, my Aston Villa, but when I have watched Rashford in recent years, my memory of his goals tend to be him being on the left, cutting in on his right, and absolutely bollocking it into the back of the net. What are his best positions, and how versatile is he? It's exactly what you just said, yeah, cutting in from the left, taking a shot on his right, that's his best position. He's played up top as a centre-forward. For me, I don't think he's quite got what it takes to lead the line in that sort of role in the Premier League, but then again, you've got Ollie Watkins, so I don't think you necessarily need him for that, do you? So I think, yeah, he is coming off the left-hand side. He can play on the right, but he's not as effective on the right, I don't think. But what he needs is the confidence to beat a man again. He completely lost that at Old Trafford. He would always turn back, pass it backwards, not take someone on, and when he did, it was such an obvious run that he was easy to defend against. So I do hope that he can get it back, because he's clearly a good lad deep down, and it's just not been a great few years for him. And, you know, because obviously his form has dropped off, is there, you know, obviously there's the story about, I think it's Andy Mitt in Manchester United report has said that coaches have had problems with him through the years, whatever that means, you know, I don't know from the outside, but, you know, questions of lifestyle or kind of whatever. But at the same time, is it actually a case of like, is it a bit like Grealish at Aston Villa? It's almost like, sometimes it just becomes a bit too much. And the emotional investment of being that hometown player can actually just overwhelm you. And the form of a team maybe gets to you more than it would do other players. And I mean, yeah, do you think that could be part of it? Yeah, yeah, quite possibly. I mean, he's been at United through arguably our worst period. Yeah. Since the 1970s, you know, he came in under van Gaal, made his debut, and literally within two weeks, he was a first team player. And that was it, we really had that staggered approach into the first team. So I think there was a lot of pressure early on. I think the pressure of the wages probably comes into it. He must be our most high paid player, I think, or at least one of the top two or three. So yeah, I think being from Manchester as well, feeling that pressure, obviously he wants to live a certain way, but you just can't do that in the glare of Man United. You can't, you know, go to Belfast, behind the manager's back and have a night out because he's going to find out about it like he did in the Tanahag case. I just think that, yeah, his head has been turned a little bit. Maybe it's the pressure of it. I don't know. I don't know. But then again, you look at what he did in Paris, when he was younger, scored a last minute penalty to knock PSG out of the Champions League, one of his best moments in the United shirt. So he has got that inner confidence in the locker. It's just rediscovering it a little bit. And I'm just interested about why it's come about. Is Amrin telling the truth? Is he not training properly? Or do United just want to get him off the books, get those wages off the books? It sounds like Villa are going to take on 75%, potentially rising to 90% if he plays well. So that must be a big bonus for United to get that wage off the book at a time when they're trying to restructure the whole club. Yeah, because it does sound a bit like, you know, you're looking, again, looking from the outside, it looks like Ratcliffe is making lots and lots of cuts, various different parts of the club. With Rashford going with this big contract he's on, and the £40 million fee that seems to be in this deal if we choose to, if we want to buy him in the summer. Yeah, it kind of looks a bit like you're quite, you kind of need the money almost. Are there PSR issues at United? Yeah, massively. I think Ineos are going to take the brunt of it from people. But at the end of the day, the Glazers left us in this position, and they're now trying to clean house. I think Ineos have made mistakes already, but I think they're now trying to make up, to basically tidy up a huge mess that was left behind by the previous footballing administration. Marcus's wage is a massive, massive consideration to get it off the books. It's pretty big. I think you might see more moves like that. I do think they were quite keen to try and sell Garnaccio and Cash-in. I think Fan Sentiment would have really turned against Ineos if they'd have done that. He's one of the few bright sparks that we've got at the moment. He's kind of done what Rashford hasn't. He's responded to the coaching by hammering. So yeah, I think it was an easy thing to do. In terms of the 40 million, at the moment, he isn't even a 40 million player from what I see on the pitch. But he can be, and he can be worth much more if you can get a tune out of him. There was a time when he was talked about as a 100 million player, almost Rylan Mbappe. That sounds crazy to say now, but that's what was being talked about in the wider sports media just a few years ago. It's a good deal for Villa really, because it's win-win, isn't it? If it doesn't work out, he comes back in the summer. Yeah, exactly. It feels to me like Aston Villa are the breath of fresh air that he seems to need, and that for us, he's also something in addition in attack, who at his best is close to a world-class level, who can help us in the Champions League, and if he can respond to Unai Emery's coaching. It certainly looks to me like a deal that makes sense, and as you say, it's sort of on him now, isn't it? If it doesn't work out, well, where's he going to go from here? If he wants to go to Barcelona in future, if that's his dream, then it's not going to happen if he just doesn't perform now. Does he walk into your team though? I don't know if he does. What Emery tends to do with new signings is he tends to sort of bring them in gradually. I mean, thinking about it, on our left-hand side, that's our strongest position now, suddenly. We've got five players who can all play there. Jacob Ramsey and Morgan Rodgers are the two who mainly play there. Then you'd have Rashford coming in, which would be his strongest position. Marco Asensio, who on the left tends to be his strongest position, and John McGinn can play there as well. So, we're kind of spoilt for choice in this one specific position. That is so depressing to hear when you think about what our options are. I mean, that is so far and away ahead of what United have got at the top of the pitch at the moment. It's crazy. You are spoilt for choice in that department. So, no, I don't think he walks into the team, but I suppose he can play his way in and you can be in on a number of fronts as well. Presumably, Marcus's wages are going to be pretty much at the top of the village's wage bracket. If he does come in and doesn't perform, is that going to upset the apple cart a little bit in the village dressing room, considering how much you're going to be paying him? Yeah, I mean, it could, particularly if he really doesn't perform and every week he's getting paid a certain amount. But I think probably what the club would argue is that because it is only a short-term deal, it's not like a long-term commitment that a, say, a five-year contract would be. But it will be interesting. You know, Bhubhikar Kamara, I think, is probably our best player and his contract negotiations are coming up very, very soon. He's got a year and a half left in his deal. So, it'll be interesting to see what he goes in for now and asks for. Yeah, I mean, I think it'd be more of an issue if, you know, let's say at the end of the season we sign Rashford and we put him on, you know, 250k a week. That suddenly really upsets the apple cart and suddenly drags the wages up that villa with our revenues. We can't afford to put a number of players on that sort of money. But I guess Rashford, you'd argue, you know, he's a global name. We don't have many of them. He's sort of, even just coming in for six months, it feels like he raises the profile a bit. So, it all kind of, it's hope it kind of pays for itself, really. Yeah, yeah. I wonder if, you know, if you'll feel a bit used if he has a great few moments and then goes, right, I'm off the bar. Yeah, yeah. I think for me it would be a case of if he comes in and we get to the semi-finals or the final of the Champions League and he's been a big part of it, or if we gain an extra 10 points in the Premier League that we currently, you know, keep drawing games 1-0 or 2-0, if they become 3-1s or whatever because of, partly because of him, it kind of pays for itself. And then if he goes off, I'm sort of like, I don't really mind because, you know, we can aim for a long-term player anyway. I mean, in my head I'm already thinking Villa need to, will probably need to look for a player who's a bit younger anyway, who can, has more of a five-year future rather than what Rashford would do, which is late 20s and God only knows how that form fluctuates. It just feels like. I'd watch Ravvery would have gone abroad and done it over there. It's going to hurt a little bit if he, you know, fires Villa into the top four and we're still languishing down at 13. That will I've got to say it's the first time in my life I've ever seen a player, a player at their, sort of, what should be their peak going from Manchester to Birmingham. Because normally players in Aston Villa are looking up at Manchester thinking they have lots of great bands up there. There's a lot of good nights out of there. I'll go join Manchester City or Manchester United. That's what I've lived with through my entire life. So it's quite an unusual feeling for me to see a player coming in at this age and level of potential, I guess, coming into Villa. But like I say, it is only short term. So we'll see how it goes, but hopefully it pays for itself. I mean, if we get further in the Champions League because of it, it means the money we bring in is bigger. Again, what it does for us on the global stage is bigger. So I think it sort of looks like a win-win. We'll see. We'll see how it works out. I think there's been a lot of mean, dispirited tweets about Birmingham and how he wanted to be in Barcelona on La Rambla. He's going to put the ball ring in Birmingham. I have not tweeted that, but I have seen those tweets. Birmingham's the second city, so he's going up, hasn't he? Yeah, exactly. Forget Barcelona, it's Bursalona is where he wants to be. But I mean, one question of why has form fluctuates as well? Because it is quite extreme, these fluctuations. There tend to be 17 goals a season, back to three, then a 17, then a six. Do you think it's partly the coaching? I mean, Ten Hag last season, it felt like a dead man walking the entire season. Is it partly that just... I mean, look, Amerim's a different case. It's a new manager or whatever. But particularly with Ten Hag in the last couple of years, is there a world in which you can see that maybe he dropped off because he just wasn't working with the coach? Yeah. Also, it's just lack of consistency, isn't it? I mean, not only have United had a lot of managers, they've had a lot of managers who want to do very different things, which is why you see a squad that is so just ludicrously broken. You went from Fergie to Moyes, which was just... I don't want to talk about that. Yeah, it's just a complete blur of how bad it was. Then you bring in Van Gaal, who wants to play a very rigid, defensive style of football and not let the players have any freedom when Marcus came into the team. Then you get Jose in, and Jose is Jose. Then you go to Oli, who was all about free-flowing, counter-attack football, where actually Marcus thrived. And then you go to Ten Hag via Rangnick. There's been no consistency of ideas given to the players. I think he probably has struggled with that. Ten Hag's a weird one, because in the first year, he looked great. Second year, he looked hopeless. Yeah, weird. Honestly, I would love to be able to tell you why that is, but I don't know. But you could say that about a lot of the players in that second year of Ten Hag. What I hear, they were being over-coached. They were being forced far too many ideas, literally, on the training pitch. Sessions were stop-start. They couldn't get into a rhythm. That's why you saw a load of muscle injuries. And so maybe Marcus just felt like, I just can't. I can't deal with this guy. I don't understand what he wants from me. He won't let me be me. I'm not sure he was playing him in the right position a lot of the time. But I don't want to put all the blame on the managers, because I just think if you're a player of his quality, you should be able to at least get a tune-out of yourself, despite what you're being asked to do. I mean, look at what Wayne Riener used to do. He used to tell him to f*** off and go and run off and do his own thing. I want a bit more from Marcus in that sort of demeanour. But yeah, I think he's just had a really rough last few years. The club has. So clean break. Club on the up. We're definitely a club on the down. Maybe he will come into his own at Villar and get to move to Barcelona. Yeah. And do you think this is last chance saloon for Marcus? 27 years of age. This doesn't work. You think, where does he go from here? If this doesn't work, it's on him, isn't it? Because if it doesn't work at Villar, it hasn't worked for the last couple of years at United, people are going to look at Rashford himself and say, right, well, clearly you're not doing the right things to be a professional footballer. This is his chance now. We've seen so many footballers throw away chances, especially at United. We had Ravel Morrison over the last decade, 15 years. That was one of the biggest waste of talents we've ever seen. Thankfully, Marcus didn't go down that road, but there's still time for him to mess this up. You know what I mean? He has to do it now. 27, he's still got another good six or seven, maybe even eight years at the top of his game if he can get this right. I really hope he does. I think Emery is a good man for him. Exactly that. Emery is, I think his MO is sort of the rehab coach. There's a lot of players who don't fulfil their talents to the greatest level and he's the man who quite often will take them and get them, you know, improve them. You know, you look when he came into Aston Villa after Steve and Gerrard left. God, I just feel sick saying that name. But yeah, and then Emery came in and all those players who looked absolutely clueless all season suddenly looked like world beaters, like players who could play in the Champions League, which they do. And you know, Emery is the one who was behind that. Obviously the players applied themselves and all that. So it's a two way street. You know, Rashford has to apply himself in the wide, but you know that because he has the track record of improving players who have fallen by the wayside a bit, you have to be optimistic to think that if Rashford responds and works as hard as he possibly can, there's every reason to think that, you know, Emery could get the very best out of him and get him back to a level that's at least close to what his best has been. Yeah, I just hope he buys it and I hope he listens. From what I hear, he's going to be having a lot of meetings. What I read about Emery is the way in which he communicates ideas to his players. So you've got to strap in. But yeah, it's a very big six-month run, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And it's a big chance. He's going to be playing in the Champions League and, you know, our next round draw, we're avoiding all the Real Madrid's and the Liverpool's and all that. So there's a real chance if we could get past that, we could really be pushing into the later stages. With the atmosphere at Villapark as well. I watched the Celtic game, it was ace. It was unbelievable. So I think anyone going to Villapark will be a little bit wary in the Champions League. Anyone. Do you know what, it'd be great if Steve Ashford scored the winner in the Champions League. It'd be great. Like Sancho at Dortmund last year, he got to the Champions League final when he went on loan from Manchester United, didn't he? It seems to be... Wait, how many cups have you won, two? Just the one. You can have another one then. I just don't want you to match our three, that's all. Arsenal's going to take a while to get close to it. Yeah, I think, yeah, but it is interesting to know that as well, you know, you talk about Sancho and, you know, again, as an outsider, the way I describe it with Man United, and this does relate to Rashford for any of the fans listening, is how I look at United from the outside and to me it looks like at times United have almost been, don't take this as an insult or anything, but almost like a high-end Sunderland in the sense of like... Sunderland, when they went downhill, just withered and it became a bit of a graveyard. United, to me, look like a club that have, like, players have gone there, apart from Bruno Fernandes in the last 10 years, have just come out of it kind of diminished and just gone into an atmosphere where they can't, like, Sancho is a really good example of it, like a player comes in really good before, has come out of it and seems to have found a bit of form again and it just feels like something at United is so wrong and if I was to be honest, it feels like it's just the fish rots from the head down and it comes from the glazers, it comes from the footballing structure and it infests the club itself and it almost feels like, I don't know, do you feel like, I don't know, is it just not a players are able to get to their absolute best level within the last few years, is that what it is or is it giving a bit too much leeway to the players as well? It's both, both things can be true at the same time, you know, on Sunderland at least they've got a good Netflix documentary out there, if they are casting... United till I die! Yeah, I don't think we'll get the same sympathy, you know, yeah, we've talked about this many times, you know, your regular listeners viewers will probably hear me talking about the glazers before, yes, the glazers have resided over however many years it is now, 20 years of failure, pretty much, saved by Ferguson's genius in the first 67 years but after that it's kind of been made obvious through bad appointments in the boardrooms, bad signings on the football side, just the club not being run properly essentially in every single department and now you're looking at what Radcliffe's doing in terms of cutting costs, cutting staff, just like little things that now seem like horrible, awful things to do but actually I think really hard decisions are having to be made and that all bleeds down to the players, it's like, it's just a culture of failure from top to bottom and you look at Amirim now and the way he speaks in the media, they sort of, I mean some people say he speaks too much of the truth, you know, he's kind of fuels these stories like the fact he said about the goalkeeping coach playing ahead of Rashford, things like that but he's trying to set a standard, he's trying to set a standard that we haven't hit for the last 10-15 years so someone's got to try and start doing it, I think it's going to have to be him, the whole thing has just been an absolute mess but on the other side of that, people are going to think I'm arrogant saying this but Manchester United is a pressure hooker and like nothing else and I think until you've been a part of it, I mean as a fan, I can only just say this when you're a player at United, there's nothing like it with the scrutiny, nothing like it, yeah, you have a bad performance as a United player, that's it, the knives are out, it's unbelievable and it's only getting worse with social media and like, you know, you do a great product here with the all filler, no filler but there's so many of these YouTube channels springing up about United and they thrive on failure, Goldbridge, thrive on it, Goldbridge, so all that adds to it and we know that that affects the players because they've actually started to interact with these platforms as well, so there's this big pressure cooker, fence them out on the other side and yeah, they'll go on and do all right elsewhere, then we look like idiots. It's absolutely true, the pressure cooker thing is real, it is really true, it is and like how, one thing as well I've noticed as well is that like so many, so in punditry generally, a professional punditry, a lot of the pundits are former Manchester United players and so when United lose, they particularly become very visceral and vocal about it and it feels like it's just, if you're always a player like Harry McGuire for instance, the last six years, the amount of times there must just be like a game they've lost and then he's just getting it from former United pundits who look after speaking their truth from what they're seeing but at the same time, it is getting the kind of attention you know, if let's say Tyrone Mings is having a lot of bad games with Villa, he's not going to get the same scrutiny publicly as Harry McGuire is going to get from Manchester United, it just looks like a place, I've thought this with McGuire as well before, I thought he, if he went to somewhere else, like even if he'd gone to Villa a few years ago, it probably would have just helped him in a way. I'll tell you now, if Harry was at Villa now, he'd be great, he's actually playing quite well at the moment to be fair to him, I mean he has his dozy moments, that's kind of who he is, but you know, he lost the captain's armband because he didn't really have what it took to be a United captain, he just couldn't stand up to it, but going to Villa where he wouldn't have that external pressure, he wouldn't have people taking the mick out of him all the time because he, you know, his face looked, I mean he gets the Phil Jones treatment, you know, he used to look a bit dim-witted occasionally on the wrong angle and people just think of him down as an idiot and as a sort of joker and that's just the United effect, if he was at any other club I think he'd just be a really good solid old-school defender, it's just this added pressure and critique all the time at United, it doesn't help that you've got a team full of people who actually, to be really honest, aren't up to playing for a club like United, they're just not. I think that's a really interesting point, I honestly, because like I say and it links into Rashford because you think just that environment, like maybe it's just something he needs to get out of, come to Aston Villa and get a breath of fresh air and hopefully it can raise him back to the level he kind of needs to be at and you'd hope that, you know, not getting called up for England and Gareth Southgate publicly saying, you know, he's not been at the level would be the wake-up call, it hasn't really worked at United this season so hopefully now at Villa with Unai Emery's intensive coaching maybe that's where it can be and there's, you know, something worth mentioning about Villa as well is we've got a very, it looks to me from the outside, we've got a very positive environment, you know, like the players are, you know, John McGinn's a great captain, I think that, you know, lots of players from England, Watkins, he'll know Ramsey, he'll know Rodgers, Tyrone Mings as well, so there's a fair few players he's played with at England as well, so hopefully that environment's a good one for him as well and again, but it's on him to behave and react within that. Yeah, he's got a real job on his hands to get back into the England set-up I think, the sort of play of the land has changed a lot since Rashford was in the team, you know, Tickle's got so many options now for England, however you're probably thinking, oh well if Rashford and Watkins can start learning how to play together, could be decent. I was going to say that because obviously we mentioned his best position earlier, we mentioned left sort of cutting in off the left and hitting it hard with his right, but I think at Villa as well because we sold John Duran, I think there's a good chance Rashford will be playing up front when Watkins isn't, you know, when he tries to match up the game time and also there's a good chance Rashford might feature on the right-hand side as well at times, you know, obviously the left is his best area but I mean, can he do that playing up front because again, with Villa we tend to have a lot of space running behind sometimes. Yeah, he can make those runs, he's phenomenal at making those runs if you can find the space and get the right ball into him, what he can't do is hold the play, I don't want Villa to know how often that you need a big man to bring it down and play into feet, you can't do that and in fact, neither can any of the United's current centre forwards, that's kind of half the problem. Our whole game at the moment is bringing our players, our wide players into play and we just can't bring the ball down, we just can't, it doesn't stick. We almost need Vegos to come back and I can't believe I just said that. Yeah, so okay, so I wouldn't be surprised if Rashford does play quite a bit up front and it'd be interesting to see whether him and Watkins do form a sort of partnership. Two lads up front, Cole and Yorke, old school. Because yeah, Villa do play a sort of hybrid-y, weird 4-4-2. It's weird, I don't really understand it, yeah. Yeah, it's like a box shape midfield but left, yeah. That's why you call them Professor. Yeah, the Professor Unai, yeah, and then right midfield as well, does he ever play out there at all or is it? Yeah, he has done and back in the days when they'd just swap over every 20 minutes. I just think that he's much better cutting in. He has that real whip, sort of pingy shot where he can just fire it into the top corner on his right foot, one touch to his right foot and then curl it in from outside the box, that's his bread and butter. Okay, good. Unfortunately, just when he tried it, probably the last year, it's gone into the stands or he's not even tried it at all, he's just packed it back to the full-back. God, wow. Well, if he can get an early goal in his time at Villa, I think that'll be a big help for him, hopefully. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I want to see how he does. Yeah, I'm very intrigued. I mean, for us, it's just our defenceman, we concede every single bloody game. So, I mean, if we're going to continue conceding two goals a game, then hopefully Rashford, in a sense, he can help us score three goals to win 3-2. But, yeah. Well, Ian, thank you so much for coming on and chatting all about that. I'm sure we'll revisit the Rashford thing towards the end of the season as well and get a sense of how he's done at Villa and where his future might go from here. But, no, thanks so much, Ian, and wish you well. And, you know, who knows how it'll go under Amarim. I think if I was to bet on it, I'd say he's going through a bit of an Arteta moment at the moment. Early days at Arsenal, it was like a big struggle, but once the players came in that he needed, maybe it all comes together. Fingers crossed, yeah. Maybe we'll be talking this time next year when you're loading Garnett shot. In another push for the Champions League final or something. Can't believe I'm even saying that. Right, well, thanks so much, Ian. It's been great to chat to you.