Manchester United and their penalty record have come under wide scrutiny in recent times due to the increasing number of penalties that they have received as opposed to some of their opponents
Marcus Rashford has revealed how the current spurs manager taught him to be ‘savvy’ enough to win penalties whenever he was in the box. Many people complain that the game has become soft and that forwards go down too easily in the box with minimal contact.
Here is a short excerpt of what Marcus Rashford told the FWA (Football Writers Association)
“ I remember when Jose was manager, there were five or six times where I should have had a penalty and Jose ended up saying to me. ‘If you are not savvy about the way you do it, then you are not going to get given it.’
These words of the Manchester United star make you think whether there is an underlying amount of deception that goes on regularly within the game.
VAR was introduced so that it could reduce such instances and bring back some respect to this beautiful game but determining the intent and intensity in a contact game like football will always be hard and even VAR has received a lot of criticism.
There seems to be a lot of inconsistency with respect to the decisions given thus sparking a lot of controversies. Jurgen Klopp has been one of the latest to voice his opinions on the number of penalties that were being awarded to Manchester United. While Manchester United has been awarded quite a few penalties in the last few seasons this problem is more about the mentality that the layers have where you are awarded for going down easily in the box than staying on your feet.
This latest excerpt statement from Rashford only further shines a light on how coaches are also starting to tell their players to use these tactics to get better chances.
