Marcos Rojo leaves Man Utd unfulfilled with burnt toast his lasting legacy
Everything was in place for Marcos Rojo to become a real Manchester United star - even his name! Instead, he leaves Old Trafford to join Boca Juniors back home in Argentina without ever having come good on that potential.
Rojo was everything United fans like to see in defenders. He was passionate, aggressive and took no prisoners with his no nonsense style of play, qualities that the likes of Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Gary Neville and others had also possessed during their time at the club.
Rojo had come to the attention of United with fine displays for Argentina at the 2014 World Cup, even making it into FIFA’s All-Star Team based on a performance index.
He played on the left of a back four at that tournament, but he could also play in the centre of defence as well and it was there that he often featured in English football.
Rojo became a cult figure quite early as a result of an endearing burnt toast upload on social media, but on the pitch he struggled to heat up in the same way.
He missed pre-season because of his World Cup involvement and the drawn out transfer process, which wasn’t exactly the cleanest of deals after he effectively went on strike to force it through. Nor was it an ideal time to be joining a club trying and failing to find its identity a year on from Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement.
Injuries limited that first season to 22 Premier League appearances, although United usually won and rarely lost when Rojo played. He featured even less in the league in 2015/16 and his days appeared to be numbered when Jose Mourinho arrived and didn’t take to him.
But when other defenders succumbed to injuries, Rojo got his chance. So too did Phil Jones.
For an all too brief period, they looked like the real deal as a centre-back pairing. In a run from the beginning of November 2016 until the middle of January 2017, they played 10 of 11 Premier League games together from the start, during which time United didn’t lose.
The run ended when Rojo was left out for a game at Stoke, before Jones then lost his place and later succumbed once more to injury. Rojo stayed in the team most weeks until April, but he too got injured when he suffered ACL damage in the Europa League quarter-final against Anderlecht.
His United career never recovered from that.
Once fit again seven months later, he played just 27 more games for the club in the three-and-a-half years until his departure this week. Fitness and further injuries were a major factor and he was eventually deemed surplus to requirements and left a forgotten man.
Rojo spent what should have been the best years of his career at United, joining at the perfect age of 24 and leaving at 30. However, he managed only 122 appearances in that time, which is a tally as disappointing as his toast making abilities.
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