Ryan Giggs criticises Marcus Rashford after Man United stalemate
Man United legend Ryan Giggs believes Marcus Rashford should have taken the penalty at Wolves on Monday night
Ryan Giggs says Marcus Rashford should have demanded to take Monday night’s penalty ahead of Paul Pogba after Manchester United dropped points in a 1-1 draw at Wolves.
The Red Devils were presented with the chance to restore their lead at Wolverhampton Wanderers after Portuguese midfielder Ruben Neves cancelled out Anthony Martial’s first-half opener.
Pogba’s surging run was brought to an illegal halt by Conor Coady, which resulted in the visitors being presented with a penalty for the second successive Premier League game.
Rashford scored from the spot in Manchester United’s 4-0 victory over Chelsea FC a week earlier but the Red Devils striker allowed Pogba to take the penalty at Wolves.
The France international’s effort was saved and Manchester United missed out on the chance to hoist themselves above Arsenal and Liverpool FC to the top of the table.
Gary Neville was quick to slam Pogba’s decision to take the penalty given Rashford’s successful conversion a week earlier.
And his former team-mate Giggs felt that Rashford should have shown authority and assumed responsibility for the spot-kick despite Pogba’s apparent eagerness to take it.
“[Rashford is a] centre-forward, scores a goal in his first league game, penalty, you get another penalty in the next game, you’ve got to be demanding to take it,” Giggs told Optus Sport, as quoted by Metro.
“It’s a shame, he was really disciplined tonight, Pogba.
“Pogba has not got a great record either of scoring penalties. He doesn’t score every penalty he takes.
“It seems like whoever wins the penalty gets to take it, I wonder if [Harry] Maguire or [Victor] Lindelof win the penalty, who gets to take it?
“I was surprised. I’m not surprised that Paul Pogba stepped up, because he’s that kind of player, which is obviously encouraging.
“I’m just surprised when you’ve scored a penalty the game before, that you get a penalty the next game you don’t take it. So you open up to criticism then, because if Marcus misses it then OK, you can miss a penalty, but now everybody is talking about why Marcus didn’t take it, why did Pogba take it?
“It should have been Marcus. It’s a strange one because before the game you usually have a designated penalty taker and you would think it would be Marcus after scoring last week. Like I say, he’s done it the week before.
“Again, there’s a conversation. Ole’s said after the game that they have two designated penalty takers and looking at this [last week’s] maybe they do, and again tonight they have the same conversation so it’ll be interesting to see, ‘Do you fancy it? No I fancy it?'”
Manchester United will face Crystal Palace in their next Premier League fixture at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon.
The Red Devils finished in sixth spot in the table last term.
