In 15 damning words, a rejuvenated Marcus Rashford summed up the reason for his and almost all others\u2019 inability to maintain peak performance levels at Manchester United, and why Sir Jim Ratcliffe is clinging to the increasingly false hope of Ruben Amorim turning things around at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
Rashford now has eight goal contributions in nine games for club and country, Barcelona boss Hansi Flick has described him as an \u201cunbelievable\u201d talent and president Joan Laporta can\u2019t believe his luck. The \u00a326m required to make his loan move permanent at the end of the season looks like an absurd bargain<\/a>.<\/p>\n But we\u2019ve been here before with Rashford. After 43 goals and 22 assists across two seasons under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer he was being linked with \u00a3100m moves abroad. 30 goals in all competitions under Erik ten Hag in 2022\/2023 saw United hand him a very lucrative five-year contract to ward away the same eager suitors. But troughs have followed those peaks.<\/p>\n Rashford<\/a> scored just five goals in Solskjaer\u2019s third season and eight in Ten Hag\u2019s second. Suggestions of complacency, overconfidence and distraction have all been aimed at Rashford by people who don\u2019t and can\u2019t know why he\u2019s never been able to sustain the top level required to be labelled a world class footballer. But Rashford himself has perfectly sound justification for his own inconsistency.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I have been in an inconsistent environment for a very long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old had been asked by ITV ahead of England\u2019s World Cup qualifier against Latvia on Tuesday what he thought about Thomas Tuchel\u2019s claim that the only thing preventing Rashford from being considered a truly elite footballer was his lack of consistency.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I completely agree,\u201d Rashford added. \u201cI think consistency is what I need to bring into my game and I am looking to do that. I want to be at my best, not sometimes, but as often as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people talk about consistency, in order to be consistent in anything not just sport, you need consistent variables in your life and the way you train.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have just had so many changes so far in my career but I have to look forward and that it definitely one of the things I want to put right and improve on to be at my best more often.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I am at my best I really enjoy everything about the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n Ten games for Barcelona is evidently too small a sample size to make any grand claims over Rashford\u2019s consistency, but his comments do speak to the predicament Ratcliffe and Ineos now find themselves in with regards to Amorim\u2019s future at the club.<\/p>\n Whether he will be given this time or \u2013 as we suspect \u2013 not, Ratcliffe said last week that Amorim needs \u201cthree years\u201d at United to prove he\u2019s a \u201cgreat coach\u201d. And while that felt like an almost farcical vote of confidence in a manager who\u2019s overseen their worst Premier League season ever and has accrued just 37 points in 34 top flight games, the quest for consistency goes a long way to explaining it.<\/p>\n