WORLD IS WATCHING RASHFORD
All eyes on United wonderkid as he makes England debut
ROY HODGSON last night claimed the whole world will be watching Marcus Rashford make his England debut tonight.
The 18-year- old Manchester United striker is set to start against Australia at the stadium of Light as doubts linger over daniel sturridge, who is suffering with a calf strain.
Rashford has burst on to the scene this season, scoring eight goals in 18 games for United.
Hodgson said: ‘It is a big game for him because myself, the coaching staff, the rest of the players, the whole of the football world is going to be looking and saying, “We all think this lad has something special, can he now show it to us once again?”
‘We will be giving him every opportunity to do that. He has very interesting qualities. I am really excited to see how that pans out on the international stage. I can’t alter the fact that playing him will create headlines and exceptional interest. I worked hard to play down expectations when people were saying, “A new genius is born” and at least give him time to see if he could keep it up over two or three months and that is what he has done.’
sturridge’s latest injury is a real concern for Hodgson as he ponders his final 23 for Euro 2016. ‘I can’t deny that we are talking about a player with a really unfortunate record,’ said the manager. ‘When fit and on form, he’s a player of highest calibre.’
Midfielder Fabian delph is likely to miss the tournament after picking up a groin injury in training, boosting danny drinkwater’s hopes of making the final cut. Centre back gary Cahill’s chances of going to France have improved after he had a second injection to cure a hip injury.
EVEn Roy Hodgson struggled to contain his excitement last night at the prospect of Marcus Rashford starting for England against Australia this evening.
He tried, insisting he had done his best to manage expectations since the 18- year- old broke into the Manchester United team. From the moment, he said, that ‘people were saying a new genius had been born and Hodgson must take him to France’.
But another two sentences and Hodgson had gone the way of everyone else, suggesting that the ‘whole of the football world’ would be watching to see if Rashford can now prove on the international stage that he really is ‘something special’.
Parallels are being drawn with a teenage Wayne Rooney. It was in sunderland, after all, that the England captain burst on to the international scene in a European Championship qualifier against Turkey in 2003. Rooney had made his debut, interestingly enough, against Australia two months earlier.
On that April evening at the stadium of Light, Jordan Henderson was a 12-year-old ball-boy.
The sunderland-born Liverpool captain said there was little he could recall of a then 1717-yearyearold Rooney’s remarkableable performance — ‘I was too low down,’ he explained d — but the midfielderr said he had already seen enough of Rashford to believe he could make a similar impact.
‘I watched Wayne as a youngster, how good he was, and I thinkk Marcus can go that way,’ y,’ said Henderson. ‘Look how he’s done at Manchesterhester United and how quickly he has risen. I am sure he can keep progressing like that.’
If he does it could well be at the expense of Henderson’s Anfield team-mate, daniel sturridge.
Henderson will appreciate as much as anyone the quality sturridge possesses, but Hodgson confirmed last night at the team hotel in gateshead that the injury-prone striker has suffered another setback — on this occasion a calf strain that demanded a scan at Manchester City’s training ground on Tuesday.
Quite rightly, the England manager said sturridge will be given every opportunity to prove himself fit and ready to board that plane to Paris as a member of England’s 23-man squad on June 6. It will start with a fitness assessment this morning, after which a decision will be made on whether he participates in this evening’s game. Hodgson would clearly like him to be available, and said Rashford’s position in the starting line-up was dependent on sturridge’s situation.
But there are clearly concerns that a 26-year-old who has played just 58 minutes of international football since september 2014 is not resilient enough for a major tournament.
It would be unfair to suggest that Hodgson questioned sturridge’s mental as well as physical robustness, because he was not that specific. But he did make a broader point about his own selection criteria, stressing that a player needs to be as healthy in the mind as he is in the body. Reading between the lines it did seem sturridge’s place at Euro 2016 could be in jeopardy, not least because Hodgson will cut his squad to 23 after this evening’s game. An injuinjury to Manchester City midfieldermidfi Fabian delph leavesleav Hodgson with only t two difficult calls to make and if sturridge is not deemed ready to participatep against Australia then it would seem likely another decision has been made for him. ‘I love all 25 of these playerspla and I’d like to take all of them,’ Hodgson declared.declare The mere fact that Rashford is so close to being one of the chosen 23 is staggering given how recently Hodgson was dismissing such talk. But the manager stressed that any player, Rashford included, would travel to France on merit and not for experience or to simply make up the numbers.
That said, the second of England’s three warm-up games will be used to prepare many of the players who, in all likelihood, will go to France with a higher squad number.
Hodgson was cagey about certain things, refusing to confirm if Henderson or Manchester United’s Chris smalling would captain the side in the absence of Rooney, who will only come on from the bench.
But he said Fraser Forster would start in goal ahead of Joe Hart, while it would also be an opportunity to look at a number of other understudies. While Henderson and Jack Wilshere will start on the basis that they need more game time, Rashford will more than likely be part of an attack that may include Adam Lallana and Ross Barkley.
Lallana is an interesting one, because Hodgson is clearly an admirer and a good performance against Ange Postecoglou’s side could be enough to see Liverpool’s attacking midfielder force his way into that first XI for the opening group match against Russia. This, as Hodgson has essentially said, is the last experiment, because come Thursday’s meeting with Portugal at Wembley he will be looking to unveil the team he has in mind for the tournament. Whatever happens tonight that is unlikely to feature Rashford.
But you could sense here that Hodgson would like to take him to France. The whole football world will be watching the teenager but nobody appeared more enthusiastic about it than the England manager.