Manchester United are currently refusing to even talk about another loan deal for Marcus Rashford, with Barcelona pursuing him.
That’s [according to Sport](https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/hoja-ruta-barcelona-rashford-118023437), who say the Catalan giants are keen on the Manchester United man as an alternative to Liverpool’s Luis Diaz.
The newspaper explains that Barcelona are working on a ‘roadmap’ for Rashford and are currently looking for ways to satisfy Manchester United. They are ‘inflexible’ at this point in time.
Rashford is the alternative to Diaz if Barcelona can’t generate enough space in their finances, and Financial Fair Play, to sign the Liverpool forward.
Barcelona’s director of football Deco meet with Rashford’s agent, his brother, this week and there was a positive feeling after that. The Manchester United outcast has ‘passed the Barca test’.
The most difficult part is convincing Manchester United. They are committed to securing a permanent transfer. Barcelona would prefer a loan deal. They don’t want to shell out the €40m required to sign him permanently. If they were to spend such a sum, they’d prefer to do it on signing Diaz from Liverpool or someone else.
Manchester United are refusing to negotiate anything but a transfer at this point. Rashford presents a viable opportunity to secure a big net profit given he is a youth product.
One of the options Barcelona want to explore is a paid loan with an option to buy. Sport provide an example of a €5-10m loan, as well as covering Rashford’s ‘considerable’ wages. There would then be an ‘non-binding’ option to sign Rashford permanently.
Rashford earns around €10m net per season but would be willing to take a considerable pay cut to become a Barcelona player. He could put pressure on Manchester United to make a loan happen.
If that does happen, all indications are currently that a loan deal would be done late in the summer. Barcelona, though, are confident it can happen because they faced similar circumstances with Joao Cancelo and got that deal done eventually.