MANCHESTER UNITED want a left winger, preferably one with Premier League pedigree.
England’s starting left winger against Uruguay embarked on a captivating 50-yard dash, evading a Federico Valverde tackle and outpacing Ronald Araujo to whip the ball in.
In the drab defeat against Japan, the Three Lions went closest when the sub injected a bit of pace into the forward line and fired a nice shot straight at the keeper.
The punchline is the player was Marcus Rashford, under contract at United until 2028.
Michael Carrick coached Rashford for three-and-a-half years, their working relationship ending with Rashford starting in the caretaker manager’s first two Premier League games in charge in November and December 2021.
The odds are Carrick will still be at United next season. The odds remain against a Rashford return.
United sources tire of the will-he-won’t-he regarding Barcelona’s option to sign Rashford for £26million.
One week, Barcelona will be buying Rashford. Next week, Barcelona are not buying Rashford. And so on and so on.
Despite scoring ten goals and adding 13 assists this season, Rashford, 28, has started just three of the past 17 Barca matches.
He was their Plan C after Inaki Williams committed his future to Athletic Bilbao and Luis Diaz swapped Anfield for the Allianz Arena in Munich.
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Raphinha is unquestionably Barcelona’s starting left-sided forward, so the hesitancy to sign Rashford permanently is about as unsurprising as the Catalan sports dailies’ flip-flopping.
One outcome that should not be entertained is Rashford back at United.
The days when Rashford was idolised by every Mancunian child of a red persuasion and granted leeway by the Stretford End are in the distant past.
In his last full season with United, there was friction between Rashford and the matchgoers almost from the off.
He was booed by thousands amid United’s chaotic collapse against Coventry City in the 2024 FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.
Rashford’s infamous body language became a particular bugbear with supporters after he signed a five-year contract on £325,000 a week.
Officials at United have openly said how convenient it was that Rashford’s career-best season of 30 goals in 2022-23 came in the midst of contract negotiations.
Have a glance at Rashford’s United goalscoring record since supporters clicked back through the turnstiles again after the Covid-19 pandemic: five goals in 2021-22, 30 in 22-23, eight in 23-24 and seven in 24-25. He cannot be relied on.
The worst thing United can do at a time when they are moving forwards is to take a backward step.
United’s future looks brighter and Rashford belongs to the past.
Rashford had his squad number revoked before he was unveiled at Camp Nou.
Matheus Cunha has inherited the No10 and performed enthrallingly from the left flank under Carrick amid United’s switch to 4-2-3-1.
Cunha also has a positive rapport with supporters. It is unlikely that many of them would take Rashford over the bullish Brazilian.
United may have sacked Ruben Amorim since Rashford’s move and Carrick has history with Rashford, but Carrick does not seem as sentimental as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Part of Solskjaer’s undoing was he had a blind spot with another academy graduate, Paul Pogba.
Whenever Pogba was agitating to leave or his agent was declaring his United future as “over”, Solskjaer never had the courage to banish United’s poster boy for player power.
Amorim was a failure at United but he laid down the groundwork for Carrick to hit it running. Amorim prioritised squad harmony by ostracising Rashford, Antony, Jadon Sancho and Alejandro Garnacho in the summer.
Antony and Garnacho are gone and Sancho is going, with his contract scheduled for the shredder at the end of June. Rashford should follow them out permanently.
Recruitment is now largely out of the hands of the United head coach and it would be weak of the hierarchy if they reintegrated a player who they railroaded into two loan moves last year.
Rashford needed a change of scenery when United impressionably decided not to sack Erik ten Hag after the 2024 FA Cup final. He belatedly got it, ironically after Ten Hag had been sacked.
In the end, both manager and player’s United careers effectively ended before the year was out.
One of Rashford’s hangers-on bragged about the sunshine that awaited the entourage in Barcelona in contrast to the bleak Manchester weather.
It was a curious sign-off when Rashford is a proud Mancunian and had spent his entire life there until he upped sticks for Barcelona in July.
He graces the wall of United’s academy building and rightly so. He is one of their greatest success stories.
But he has checked out of United. Rashford piggybacked onto Garnacho’s puerile Instagram stunt of donning an Aston Villa shirt with Rashford’s name on it back in June.
“My brother,” Rashford’s account wrote in the comments. The ‘bomb squad’ members’ content creation highlighted why United were right to banish both of them.
And how inauthentic footballers on Instagram can be. “F***ing Ronaldo wannabe,” was one barb aimed at Garnacho.
That wasn’t in the comments section. That was from a member of Rashford’s inner circle when they were team-mates.
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