Gary Neville has questioned Marcus Rashford and Casemiro for visiting the United States to watch an NBA match rather than ‘lying low’ and ‘relaxing’ during the international break.
After being left out by their respective nations, Manchester United stars Rashford and Casemiro decided to spend their down time across the pond and were attendance as the New York Knicks defeated the Brooklyn Nets at the weekend.
Rashford was snapped courtside, just three seats away from Hollywood A-Lister Ben Stiller, while Casemiro watched on from the stands along with his wife Anna Mariana at a packed-out Madison Square Garden.
Given United’s wretched start to the season, which ultimately cost Erik ten Hag his job, the pictures of Rashford and Casemiro kicking back and enjoying their time off, seemingly without a care in the world, did not go down too well with all fans.
United resume their Premier League campaign under new head coach Ruben Amorim down in 13th place in the table – and many supporters felt the duo would have been wise to stay out of the spotlight while they had the opportunity.
On the criticism Rashford has received for the trip, ex-United and England right-back Neville told The Overlap US: ‘I think that comes with the territory when you’re this sort of player and this sort of stature.
‘I’ve got very little sympathy for players who are the stars, who are the huge money, huge commercial contracts. They want that attention, they need it, because that’s what fuels them, that’s what makes them the great players they are and gives them that adrenaline rush.
‘They’re going to get more attention so I’ve got no problem with that, with the attention he gets.
‘I’ve got no problem with him going away during the international break at all, I’ve got no problem with him, to be fair, in any of the clothes that he wears, he wears whatever he wants.
‘The only thing that I would say is, and I’m saying this very calmly because I don’t want a, “Neville hammers Rashford” to be honest with you because I’m not hammering him.
‘It’s been a very difficult period for the club and it’s been a very difficult period for Marcus Rashford and I always used to think… there was a player I used to play with that used to say that when times were tough that basically you go down to that extra level of detail of making sure everything’s perfect, you take the butter off your toast, you’d literally make sure that you were absolutely looking at every little one per cent of detail that you could.’
Neville believes the smarter members of United’s squad, those not picked for international duty, will have spent the break away from the relentless gaze of the media.
‘I used to think that I had to stand in that tunnel when I was going through a difficult time, but even going through a good time, but going through a difficult time I would think, “Right, I’ve got to work my way out of this, I’ve got to really be absolutely perfect”, every drink, every sleep, every training session, every stretch has got to be absolutely perfect,’ he added.
‘Would I think that the most relaxing way to spend your time, whether your Casemiro, who is 30-odd years of age, or Rashford, who is in his 20s, is traveling 10-11 hours?
‘To be fair, I have done that quite a few times in the last few months and you get a bit of jet lag when you go to the US side and when you come back… so is it right that for a three-four, jet-lag based trip, when you’ve got the idea of training and trying to make sure you’re fit… I don’t personally think it’s the right choice of distance, the right choice of destination.
‘If the New York Knicks were playing three hours away, four hours away, with a one-hour time difference then I would say, “Go for your life, lads, and go and watch”.
‘But I think, personally, if I was looking at being absolutely perfect in myself – and I’m just talking about what Gary Neville would do here and I maybe at times took professionalism to an obsessive level – I wouldn’t be on a 10-hour flight to a different time zone that was basically going to potentially cause me more of a problem physically, from a tiredness perspective, particularly at this point whereby a manager has just been sacked, we’re going through a tough time and all eyes are on us.
‘I’d lie low, I’d go somewhere and rest. Those Manchester United players that haven’t been on international duty, there are some of them that have gone away that you don’t know where they’ve gone to and they’re the clever ones in my mind.’
Jamie Carragher took a different view to Neville and insisted he had ‘no problem’ with players spending their time off in any way they see fit.
Asked if he feels comfortable with players going on holiday during the break, Carragher replied: ‘Yeah, because it’s a long two weeks and the managers always give them three or four days off.
‘Normally, when I was coming towards the end of my career, you would play the last game, normally on a Sunday, you would probably get Monday and Tuesday off and then you’d be in for three days – Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – and then you’d probably be allowed to go away and back in on the Tuesday so you would have three or four days off.
‘The way it works now, I think the normal supporter can’t quite get their head around that: If someone’s got three days off they go to New York.
‘But listen, the lifestyle these lads have got, the mode of travel, they’re probably on private jets or whatever they’re doing. It’s not the normal thing of a family going on holiday and all the rigamarole. They’re very wealthy guys, they could be anywhere in the world quite quickly.
‘Listen, I have no problem with it. You need that little bit of down time, not just physically but mentally getting away from it. That was the big part that I really enjoyed towards the end of my career, the international breaks.
‘As you’re getting older, it breaks the season up for you so, no, I’ve got no problem with that.’
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