Marcus Rashford says he is wary of hangers-on after ‘friend’ stitched the Manchester United star up
SOMEBODY, somewhere has tried to tuck him up.
Everybody, it seems, is pretending to be Marcus Rashford’s best mate these days.
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These are the pitfalls for the modern-day pro, with plenty of flunkeys and hangers-on trying to piggy back on his success.
He revealed: “The big change is the way I have to look after myself because someone is always trying to get something off the back of you.
“There’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to be smart and try not to put myself in those situations as much as I can.
“Instead I just do normal stuff, like PlayStation or take the dogs for a walk. It can be anything, it can be your own friends, or even people’s family members.
"It’s difficult but what am I to know?
“Like I said, I have people around me that guide me and kind of keep me away from certain things.
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"Sometimes as a young player, that’s what’s needed.”
Rashford was unwilling to talk about exactly what has happened but it is clear it has troubled the young England striker as he makes his way through life.
In August 2016 he had his £20,000 Rolex stolen after he left the watch in a safe at a trampoline park.
When he called to reclaim it, he was told a “relative” had picked it up but it was later returned.
Everybody wants a bit of Rashford at the moment, a piece of the action.
He is still box fresh, still exciting, still the same talent who shot to fame — and fortune — at 17.
Rashford, who turns 20 at the end of the month, is the red-hot ticket in Manchester after another electrifying start to the season.
The hysteria is nowhere near the levels that once saw Georgie Best mobbed by mini-skirted women and bespectacled kids in parkas hunting for autographs when he walked down Deansgate.
Nobody expects Rashford, who is due to start England’s World Cup qualifier at Wembley against Slovenia on Thursday, to go down that road.
He appears too smart, too streetwise, too level-headed for that. Instead, he is trying to lead a quiet life, spending the afternoons in the Trafford Centre with his girlfriend or meeting his pals for peri-peri chicken in Nando’s.
That is the way Rashford rolls.
He added: “When I was younger my family taught me how to behave.
“My brothers (Dwain and Dane) look after me now and my mum (Melanie) relaxes.
“Ryan Giggs was also a big help. The coaches have been there and done it.
“Paul Scholes had a couple of training sessions when he was doing his coaching badges and they were fun and enjoyable.
“But where we learn the bread and butter is when we’re very young but people don’t know about those coaches, people like Paul McGuinness.”
Unquestionably, he has been brought up the Manchester United way, as Gary Neville, brother Phil, Scholes and David Beckham had been by the time they broke through.
Rashford, even with 60-odd pairs of fancy Balenciaga trainers at his home in Cheshire to choose from, has his feet on the floor again.
He added: “United try to turn you into good people as well as good players.
"It’s about having a lot of respect for everyone regardless of who they are or what they do.
“Just having that alone can get you a long way. It’s the main message they give you. United are very good at nourishing abilities.
"They keep us grounded.
“If you are winning a game by a ridiculous scoreline, then obviously as attackers we might start messing about if we have scored three goals or whatever.
“But the coaches would say you’re beating them but still show them respect. They drill that into you from a very, very young age.”
Now that he is a first-teamer, he is flying.
He rinsed Crystal Palace at the weekend, making a fool out of their right-back Joel Ward in the build-up to Juan Mata’s third-minute opener.
Seven games into the Premier League season and it is already shaping up to be another good year for Rashford.
He has already had tournament exposure with England, part of Roy Hodgson’s flagging regime when they were humiliated by Iceland at Euro 2016.
Rashford has no business carrying the scars from that defeat but it hurts him all the same.
The United forward added: “It is difficult to see it as a positive when you’re losing those games.
“If it’s for your club and it’s a league game, if you lose a game you have another game next week and you can kind of redeem yourself.
“It’s not like that at tournament football and that’s why it was so disappointing and hard to take. A lot has changed since then.
“We have a new manager and he has his own ideas. But then we have to build our own plan once we get to the World Cup to try to win it.”
If they somehow do that, there will be more temptations placed in front of Rashford than ever before.
Just don’t expect him to fall for any of them.
