Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up
All Scores
Odds by

Marcus Rashford not with Manchester United squad for League Cup QF vs Tottenham

Marcus Rashford has once again been left out of the Manchester United squad on Thursday, as the Red Devils are in north London to face Tottenham in the quarterfinals of the League Cup.

MORE - Rashford on leaving Manchester United: ‘I’m ready for a new challenge’

Rashford, who along Alejandro Garnacho (back in the team again) was first dropped by new manager Ruben Amorim for Sunday’s Manchester derby, declared that he was “ready for a new challenge” this week. Rashford hasn’t played a single minute of club football for anyone other than Manchester United, where he has been since he was 7 years old.

Marcus Rashford not with Manchester United squad to face Tottenham

Ruben Amorim explains dropping Rashford, Garnacho vs Man City

After the win at Manchester City, Amorim was asked by the written press if both Rashford and Garnacho being dropped was due to disciplinary issues.

“It is important to say why. It was not a disciplinary thing - next week, next game, new life,” Amorim said. “They are fighting for the places but for me it’s important for me the performance in training, the performance in game, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with the team-mates, the way you push your team-mates. Everything is important in our context in the beginning of changing a lot of things, when people in our club are losing their jobs, we have to put the standards really high. For that, they have to fight for the place in the team and today the team proved that we can leave anyone outside the squad. You can manage to win if we play together.”

“I’m going to say again, it was not a disciplinary thing. It was the small details,” Amorim added. “You can see the games like I see. There are some things that have to change but it’s a new life. It’s not a disciplinary thing, it’s the performance in training, the performance in games and then I have to choose players. Jonny Evans did everything right, he was at home and also [he] is very important for us. If it is a disciplinary, I will say it here [in the press conference] and it will be a bigger problem. It was not that. It was just that I want to improve my players and sometimes you see and you understand that for so long we try, for example, with Rashy [Rashford] a thing that doesn’t work. Let’s continue to do the same thing or try something different. So it’s simple as that. If they train well with the talent they have, we will be so much better with both of them [Rashford and Garnacho]. But they have to work hard, [what] they are trying to do. Today, they train really hard, so it’s a good thing. New week, new life, let’s see.”

Our partners in the UK at Sky Sports spoke to Ruben Amorim before the derby and asked him why both Rashford and Garnacho had been dropped.

“Selection,” Amorim said. “We try to evaluate everything: training, performance, game performance, engagement with the team-mates, pushing the team-mates up. Everything is on the line when we analyse and try to choose the players, so that is my selection. Simple. I don’t want to send a message. It’s simply an evaluation, and they know it. The players are really, really smart. Everybody understands my decision. I have to choose. It’s just simple selection.

“The context is difficult. We have to win games and we have a difficult situation. I pay attention to everything, the way you eat, the way you put on your clothes to go the game. Everything. I make my evaluation and then I have to decide. I have a lot of players to choose.”

Asked how he told both Rashford and Garnacho they weren’t even in the squad, Amorim said it was done via WhatsApp.

“It’s the same all the time. There’s a communication after the last training which goes to the WhatsApp. They receive the information,” Amorim said. “But they are alright. They had training this morning. I was there. Everything was OK. They trained really well.”