Man Utd have kept Rashford – and Barcola shows why that could be smart

Analysis

Robin Bairner | Chief Editor

Accredited football journalist and editor covering the game since 2006

Manchester United have settled two long-standing issues over Michael Carrick’s squad for the 2026/27 season: Marcus Rashford will be part of it, and he will fill the spot on the left of the attack that the Red Devils had lined up alternatives for.

Rashford’s Old Trafford career seemed over 18 months ago. A fallout with Ruben Amorim saw him sent out on loan to Aston Villa, and with the Portuguese still in place when he returned, he was shunted out on loan to Barcelona.

He was expected to stay in Catalunya, where the Blaugrana had a purchase option for €30 million, but they elected not to trigger this due to his wage demands.

Current ETV

Marcus Rashford

F, M (L)

Man Utd

Marcus Rashford

F, M (L)

Man Utd

€31.3M

ETV Range

€28.1M - €34.4M

View full profile

What Rashford was asking in terms of his salary was, in fact, a reduction on the wages he will receive at Man Utd, which in turn had the Red Devils searching for suitors as they sought to reduce their costs.

With no deal realistically on the horizon, the club have taken the decision to hand him the No.14 jersey for the season ahead in effective confirmation that he will be going nowhere.

The logical decision to keep Rashford

Rashford will remain at Old Trafford almost by default, but that does not mean it is necessarily a bad thing for Carrick’s hopes of building a squad capable of sustaining success in the Premier League and in Europe.

Indeed, with Liverpool struggling to strike a deal with PSG over Bradley Barcola, who has had a price tag of €150m placed on his head by the two-time Champions League winners, the market for left wingers is particularly competitive – just as it has been for central midfielders.

United managed to negotiate the problem of replacing Casemiro and the injured Manuel Ugarte with patience and intelligence. They spotted an opportunity to sign Andrey Santos on a bargain fee from Chelsea and took advantage of Youri Tielemans’ low release clause at Aston Villa to snap up the Belgian for an excellent price in an inflated market.

These same attributes are coming into play with Rashford. The decision to retain him might not be the one the club would ideally have taken, but it comes from cold, hard logic.

Man Utd expert Andy Mitten explained to the Stretford Paddock: “Money is an issue, they need money. There’s money there, but I don’t think you’ll see stupid money signings because the money is not there. Which is sobering.”

Deals are promised, but Rashford will not, it seems, be one of them.

And for United, that is a good thing.

The stats don’t lie: Rashford is one of United’s best

Cut away the noise, and there’s a fine player there if his potential can be tapped.

The data on Rashford is particularly encouraging. According to SciSports, which uses hundreds of in-game data points to generate a SciSkill score for thousands of players, the 28-year-old is one of Man Utd’s best players. Only Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha score more impressively than him.

What is particularly eye-opening about SciSports’ analysis is that Rashford even has a higher current SciSkill score than Barcola (108.4) – a player tipped to move for five times the price Barcelona might have paid for the Englishman.

United’s decision to keep their academy product might have been one driven by practicality, yet it could yet prove a blessing in disguise for those decision-makers at the top of the club.

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