An image of Rashford outside Old Trafford
An image of Rashford outside Old Trafford
The beginning of the end of Marcus Rashford's Manchester United career can be traced back to two events last year. The first was his contract renewal.
Sir Alex Ferguson said nearly 20 years ago Ruud van Nistelrooy was always destined to leave United after he agreed a new deal in 2004. Van Nistelrooy was gone in 2006.
Rashford's form has nosedived since his salary hike to £325,000 a week in July 2023. Fifteen club goals in 18 months, two very public disciplinaries and a seismic demotion for a Manchester derby.
More antagonistic than attending a birthday party on Deansgate hours after being substituted to catcalls in a derby defeat was the decision to hire Caroline McAteer as a PR adviser in December last year. Ms McAteer represents Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho.
Sancho was in exile at the time and Ronaldo's acrimonious divorce from United had been agreed only 13 months earlier. Both players publicly undermined the United manager. Both had been piqued by selection calls. There is a pattern developing.
Ronaldo refused to come on as a substitute against Tottenham in October 2022 and Sancho was omitted from the matchday squad at Arsenal due to training form in September 2023. Sancho had form for that. His lack of playing time at the European Championship in 2021 was owed to his performance level in training.
Sancho posted a 111-word statement accusing Erik ten Hag of lying. Ronaldo conducted an incendiary interview with his sycophant Piers Morgan. Now Rashford has become one of a handful of high-profile United players to publicly seek a transfer.
Figures close to Rashford have purportedly suggested they cannot control Ms McAteer when they were responsible for hiring her. They were only ever going to get bad PR unless Rashford's form improved immeasurably.
"If you ever question my commitment to Man United, that’s when I have to speak up," Rashford said in an inauthentic Players' Tribune dissertation in March. "It’s like somebody questioning my entire identity." He will not be trotting that line out again.
That hokey essay and a handful of pious posts on X, doubtless curated by a member of Rashford's entourage, have not improved his image. Rashford was booed by some of the United fans during his last appearance in freezing Plzen. Rashford froze that night, too.
He did not acknowledge Ruben Amorim when his number was up in the 56th minute and the distance between them in that moment has grown in significance. Amorim is a perceptive coach.
"It is a hard situation," Amorim told Sky Sports on Monday. "I understand that these players have a lot of people around them, making choices that are not the first idea from the player.
"I am always here to help Marcus as another player. I have to do what I have to do. They chose to do the interview as it is not just Marcus. I understand that."
Before Sky's interview aired, the word from United was that Rashford's alliance with Ms McAteer was an issue for Ten Hag but not so much Amorim. Yet when Ten Hag was questioned on Rashford's potentially antagonistic PR representation, he gave it short shrift and avoided conflict.
Amorim has at least addressed the elephant in the room. Mason Mount is another of Ms McAteer's clients, though the only bad publicity he has encountered has been injury-related. Staff at United speak glowingly about a family-oriented personality and Mount was among the players who visited patients at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital earlier this month.
Rashford's own mother, Melanie, publicly questioned the company he keeps in March. "You always need to be wary of people’s intentions around you," she wrote in The Times. "Sometimes people around you can be wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing."
Plenty of United matchgoers have their own stories to tell from encounters with members of Rashford's entourage. So do some of the journalists who cover the club.
Rashford's camp are sanguine about his situation. He got his message across through his interview with Henry Winter last Tuesday and has set the wheels in motion for a transfer. In the interests of all parties, that has to happen next month.
For the Rashfords, perhaps it was worth some militant supporters bidding 'ta ra Marcus' on a bedsheet at Tottenham. A female and a male took it in turns to hold aloft a laminated sign that read, 'Rashford love you always' at Old Trafford on Sunday. Kids still idolise him. Two mascots got pictures with Rashford, dressed in a club varsity jacket, in the tunnel.
They still sell Rashford scarves on the stalls on Warwick Road and his image adorns the wall outside the east stand. It is of Rashford celebrating an added-time winner against West Ham. It is those celebratory images that United supporters will prefer to remember, rather than the PR image Rashford has settled for.