Football pundit Simon Jordan has criticised Erik ten Hag for the way he has handled the current Marcus Rashford problem thus far.
Recently, Rashford has run into issues as it appeared that he had been caught lying.
Pictures of the England international in a Belfast nightclub surfaced after he reportedly contacted the club to inform them that he was sick and would not be able to make it to a Friday training session.
At first, it was believed that Rashford had only been out on Wednesday night, which was the night before the players’ planned Thursday break. However, it was later revealed that he went out to party on Wednesday and Thursday nights, the latter of which was just hours before team practice on Friday.
Reporters questioned Ten Hag about the Rashford situation and he responded that it was an “internal matter” that he would handle properly.
Simon Jordan, who was speaking on talkSPORT, clarified that Ten Hag should have handled the situation in another way and shielded the forward a little more.
Jordan said, when questioned about how firm the United manager should be: “It depends what he’s done. Ultimately if he’s playing on a Saturday then a lot of managers would let a player go out on a Wednesday. We don’t know how long he was in a night club for – he might have stayed until midnight and then come home for all we know, I don’t have the details.”
“The question is why isn’t he in training on the Friday and Ten Hag, anticipating this question, why does he need to make it an internal matter? The answer is ‘he’s not very well’. That’s it, that’s the end of the discussion.”
“He’s chosen to make it a media matter. He doesn’t need to deal with it through the media. If there’s a problem with Marcus Rashford’s attitude then he needs to deal with it face to face but he needs to deal with it.”
“Anything with Manchester United, anything that’s not there will be questioned because of the nature of people’s perception of what’s happening at the club with the ownership change, the cultural side of the football club and not winning anything with everything up in the air since Sir Alex Ferguson left.”
United face Wolverhampton Wanderers on Thursday in the Premier League and Rashford is likely to be available for selection.