MARCUS RASHFORD was dropped for Barcelona’s LaLiga game against Getafe after turning up late for training, reports in Spain say.
The Manchester United loanee scored both goals in Thursday’s 2-1 Champions League win at Newcastle.
But according to Mundo Deportivo in Spain, hardline Barca boss Hansi Flick benched him for being late for a team meeting on the day of playing Getafe.
Rashford came on at half time with Barca two up thanks to a double from Ferran Torres – who replaced the England international.
The winger had been dropped once before when ex-United boss Erik Ten Hag punished him for oversleeping in December 2022 – and the 27-year-old came on to score the winner at Wolves.
Before his summer move to Barca current Old Trafford boss Ruben Amorim sent him on loan to Aston Villa because of lacklustre performances in training.
Rashford scored four goals in 17 Villa games but it was not enough to resurrect his United career – paving the way for his summer loan to Barca.
He has three starts for Barca and has impressed manager Flick – but the German has zero tolerance for punctuality.
The former Bayern Munich boss has a policy of not selecting players to start a match if they are late to training or a meeting.
In the last year, Inaki Pena, Jules Kounde and Raphinha have also all suffered the same fate for lateness.
Raphinha’s incident occurred last week but the Brazilian then came on at half-time of the game against Valencia and scored twice in the 6-0.
He was then restored to the starting line-up against Newcastle.
Deportivo claimed Rashford was just TWO MINUTES late to the meeting.
It is said to have been caused by him still needing to electronically fill out information the club requests each day when they join up with the team.
Rashford was an immediate impact off the bench – assisting Dani Olmo to make it 3-0.
Read the full article here
