Same reason why Rafa spent £20m (when that was a lot) on Glen Johnson.
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He is, but he is a great example of how things outside of a player’s control can affect their progress and ultimately where their career goes. He is not any better now than he was 4 years ago. If you think back to the game against Utd when Rashford exposed Trent and look at their respective trajectories since then. Rashford is now well behind the curve though and not close to the player at 23 than we assumed he would be at this age when he was smashing it at 19. Sometimes that just happens, but I think you have to put a ton of that at the feet of Utd for being such a directionless club playing terrible football.
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This is all true. Imagine what he’d be if Klopp could get hold of him.
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Watching a game between us and them 2-3yrs ago where I was defending him to a couple of utd supporters who thought he was shite. I said exactly what you did above.
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Ole said after the game, “PSG were there for the taking”. I’ve got news for you Ole, your team was also there for taking and they were taken.
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I think Rashford is a very good player who would be excellent at Liverpool under Klopp. He would be coached better so he would know how to use his talent, and he would score a lot more goals here too.
At Man Utd he burst onto the scene, as you can’t keep talent down, but since then it has only been fits and starts for him, but like Limiescouse said, that due to the malaise at the club as much as anything.
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I’ve been a big admirer of Rashford’s for quite a while (although I think Greenwood is a class above in terms of natural ability). Funnily enough, he looked like he had much more flair in his first two seasons, now it’s all more end product with him. I guess it’s the path that many young forwards take, though. I really don’t think he’s stagnating or not fulfilling his potential, he’s doing as much as he can under current circumstances, in my opinion.
Looking at his stats on Transfermarkt, he has 76 goals and 45 assists in 230 appearances in all competitions, in roughly 170 full games’ worth of minutes, playing in three different positions. I think these numbers are excellent for his age and they further underline why I think he’d have been perfect for this Liverpool team, rivalry aside.
Also, he’s one of the main reasons why I fear someone like Pochettino taking over there, I could imagine his numbers skyrocketting with such a coach.
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Rashford is pretty good with potential to become even better, no doubt.
He was very young when he came through. United were/are in such situation that they rushed with a few of their talents. They needed them there and then. So it’s natural that they will have some ups and downs in the mean time. They haven’t been good enough for a good few years now. Could be 10 years without a league title.
But that’s just individuals or certain strong/talented parts of the team.
All together, I’m still not buying it. The whole balance, quality in a few areas, coaching, etc.
They have to sort themselves out and that comes from upstairs. Appointing a better manager can help, in some smaller percentage cases even more so, but I think even with a Pochettino, there’s more work to be done there.
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Rashford is good for their level, not so good for ours. He doesn’t have half the footballing intelligence of our front 4.
Greenwood is a better talent without a doubt but obviously has some off the field issues to deal with.
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Prime Minister?
At the rate he’s going he’s got a better political future ahead of him than one of a footballer.
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On the Cavani thing I’ve been deliberately quiet as it’s a situation where I see no clear direction as to what is right or wrong.
I wholly sympathise with Cavani as I’m also fed up with this insistence that everything non English is worthless. He was clearly speaking his own tongue and from a his own perspective as a South American. I’d even doubt that racism based on skin colour is not as massive a thing in that part of the world (i’m likely wrong).
But then for the many that don’t understand South American culture that word is offensive. That also needs to be recognised. Some might argue that perhaps it’s use as Cavani (and Suarez) is too old school and they need to be aware of how the world is changing. I can see that but there is still part of me that wants this English superiority thing to just fuck off.
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I too am in two minds about it but because racial terms referring to people’s skin colour are generally accepted in one society or language does not make it right. If he was Bulgarian or Russian and using Negrito equivalents in their languages would we be as willing to excuse them on the basis they meant no harm and it was accepted in those countries?
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Everyone see my post above for an explanation on what is means.
You can’t judge another language use/meaning using your own language.
There are things called false friends.
Example: the expression I’m Embarrassed - in Spanish there’s a very similar expression ‘estoy embarazada’ but it means I’m pregnant. The actual expression would be estoy avergozado.
Can you see the dangers now? There’s people who are obviously not proficient in the languages who are expressing definitive answers and conclusions.
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A simple talk and some education about what is required is the answer to the Cavani situation. However, since they jumped all over Suarez and made sure he became a pariah, and got an 8 match ban, my propensity for calm understanding has flown out of the window.
Outrage and harsh punishment is the precedent.
Watching to see what will happen.
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Much would depend on the meaning of the word in their language.
When a Spanish film is translated, the swears words are too.
The English f##ck is always translated as hijo de p#t# which literally means son of a whore, which while not a very nice thing to say to someone isn’t a transliteration because if they did the insult wouldn’t carry the same weight.
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In translation there are various methods. A literal word for word translation might not be the most accurate, and instead you need to do a ‘thought for thought’ translation, to put the concept from one language into another.
I’m a fair guy and I honestly don’t think Cavani has all that much to answer for. A little word, maybe some education as to what is required, and we move on.
But the precedent of Man Utd making much of the Suarez incident, in order to damage LFC, lingers. So who knows what will happen here.
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There was a time when it wasn’t considered offensive to call people Paddy or Taffy but eventually those who were being called it in an affectionate way decided they had had enough…
Might be happening in Uruguay too. Not hard to find similar opinions online.
Linguist Amparo Fernandez said the case was an example of attempts to “globalise meanings,” a task he said was impossible because it stripped words of their contexts.
However, Fernandez also said Afro-Uruguayan communities had increasingly expressed their unease at the word and some considered it discriminatory.
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I think there is a common belief among fans that the improvement in performances that a player follows across his career is a linear path. In fact it’s much more of an s-curve - a player struggles to break out of the youth side into the seniors, then when he does make it, you will see rapid progression, then the improvement tapers off where, in the best case scenario, the player will be able to sustain a similar performance for the remainder of his career.
I think we need to factor in that when looking at Rashford. The kid peaked early, and his progression is following a similar progression to all players. Even Messi and Ronaldo follow the same sort of s-curve in terms of improvement over their careers, it’s just that unlike most players, both have played the majority of their games after the point of growth stagnation.
I agree the manager and club plays a big factor as well. Becoming a great player isn’t just about ability, but also how a manager optimizes the team setup to translate a player’s abilities into performances. I think it’s fair to say that Klopp could very well have optimized our fullbacks to the point where they can’t be optimized any further. I personally think the improvements in both Robbo’s and Trent’s careers will begin to taper off and the output we have seen from them in the last 12 months will be similar to what we will get out of them over the next 3-5 years (injuries and form unaccounted for).
Has Gollum optimized Rashford and his position as well as he could have? Probably not. But I think the tailing off of Rashfords career has been following a predictable path and in that time Trent’s star has risen, he will start to tail off and there will be other England teammates who further their career and gain on Trent.
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So where does it all stop?
Growing up Taffy was used in the same way as Scouser, Geordie, Cockney Jock and dirty manc (just kidding).
This is going to horrify our younger readers and accuse me of ignorance, racism etc but I would say, for going to the corner shop run by Pakistani’s ‘I’ m going to the Paki’s. Or the Chinese takeaway would be to the ‘Chinky’ s’.
Why would I use these horrible offensive terms? Because I hated Pakistani’s or the Chinese? Or maybe not even hated but looked down upon them in some way?
Nope the answer is simple and does not need a psychological investigation into the workings of my youthful mind. It was for the same reason that I would say leccy instead of electricity or plassy instead of plastic, or BA instead of Barry, Ga instead of Garry. It was shorter. That’s it. In a nutshell it was shorter so simpler.
In Liverpool 7 in the group of mates my bro and I had were 3 white Scousers (me, my bro) a Sikh, a Chinese Scouser (he taught us Kung Fu) some black lads, some mixed race lads and for none of us was colour an issue. We would hang around, getting up to mischief, having each other’s backs. Truly back then ignorance was bliss.
Obviously I know there were racist people around but they weren’t using the word Paki to be racist to a Pakistani person in those days, the word didn’t have that connotation. At least not where I grew up. And of course times have changed and I no longer use that word because it would cause offence.
But let’s face it. In general people are just looking for an excuse to be offended today aren’t they?
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Back to the footy. A lot of words get bandied about to describe players. Legend, world class, GOAT etc.
Rashford is not a brilliant player. He probably had the talent to be but he’s what 23? I don’t think he’s going to be much better than he already is. I think he’s reached his level. That’s no slight on St Marcus, it’s just how it is.
As regards Greenwood, he’s been around for 5 mins, so time will tell but it wouldn’t surprise me if he levels out similar to Rashford. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, he’s a very good footballer, just not the next George Best or even Dennis Law for that matter.
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