'Manchester United is a fool'
A former Liverpool striker and English football critic has been a fierce critic of Manchester United. This is because he suffered a great loss in the process of transferring Marcus Rashford (28), the team's 'Sunggol Youth', to Barcelona on loan. At the same time, Barcelona and Rashford, the other players in the loan transfer, rated it as a big profit.
British media Team Talk reported on the 26th (Korea time) 'Former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore criticized Rashford's shocking transfer to Barcelona for making a stupid deal that cost Manchester United a lot of money'
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| TeamTalk Article Capture |
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Rashford, once called the `Manchester United's next-generation ace,' has recently effectively put an end to his 20-year relationship with Manchester United. After branding himself a completely 'external player', he decided that he could no longer continue his career under Manchester United manager Ben Amorim, so he actively pursued the transfer to Barcelona, which he wanted so much.
Barcelona officially announced Rashford's loan move on the 24th. Rashford, who was given the number 14 by the Barcelona club, will play on loan in the 2025-2026 season. Of course, it also includes a complete transfer option that is quite reasonable. Barcelona is known to have the option to fully recruit Rashford for 30 million euros (about 48.8 billion won) after the 2025-2026 season.
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Rashford, who has been picked up by Manchester United's youth team since he was seven years old, made his first-team debut in February 2016 when he was 18 years old, and was called the "Manchester United's Sunggol Youth". He was also praised as an ace who will take responsibility for Manchester United's future. Manchester United, which had been steadily growing, has established itself as the team's ace by scoring 30 goals (9 assists) in official matches, including 17 goals and 5 assists in 35 EPL games in the 2022-2023 season.
However, maybe because of his success at a young age, he began to deviate gradually. It appeared that he enjoyed the party and did not work hard in training. In the 2023-2024 season, he scored only seven goals (2 assists) in 33 EPL games, and in the 2024-2025 season, he appeared in only 15 games and recorded only four goals (1 assist).
In particular, coach Amorim, who took the helm of the team in November last year, hated Rashford, who even lost his performance with such an insincere attitude. He was treated as a player who was virtually not on the team. Rashford was signed by Manchester United until June 2028, but could no longer play under Amorim.
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In the end, Rashford was demanding a move from the transfer window in January. At that time, he wanted to transfer to Barcelona, but it didn't happen. Eventually, Rashford left on loan to Aston Villa in February. Rashford, who appeared in 17 games for Aston Villa, scored four goals and six assists to show his potential for a comeback, returned to Manchester United as Aston Villa did not exercise their full transfer option.
But there was still no place at Manchester United. Amorim even handed Rashford's number 10 to new signing Matheus Cunha in the summer transfer window.
In the end, Rashford tried a new transfer to continue his career and fell into the arms of Barcelona, which he wanted. In order to go to Barcelona, Rashford agreed to drastically cut 325,000 pounds (about KRW 604.7 million) a week when he was at Manchester United. Thanks to this, Manchester United saved 15 million pounds (about 28 billion won) in the 2025-2026 season.
So far, Manchester United, Rashford and Barcelona all seem to have benefited from the loan.
However, Collymore pointed out that the deal was never in the interest of Manchester United.
Team Talk reported that `Collimore, a former striker for Liverpool and Aston Villa, insisted that Rashford's transfer was not good for Manchester United through the cutoff side' Collymore wrote in a cutoffside article that `Manchester United will only receive around £25 million if they completely transfer Rashford to Barcelona next summer, which has reached the peak of his career. This is no reward compared to years of raising and years of paying a huge weekly wage, he argued.
Collymore then said 'It's an incredible contract for Rashford. He said he played like Lionel Messi, as Gary Lineker commented at Aston Villa last season.
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Barcelona also evaluated it as a big gain. Collymore said, `Barcelona has hired a player who will be able to earn around 300,000 pounds (about 560 million won) even if he does not get a full recruitment next summer. Most of all, Barcelona's best result from the deal is that they have a player who is motivated to play for the team.'"
In the end, through this contract, Barcelona and Rashford got the best results from each other, and relatively, Manchester United suffered only a big loss, Collymore claims. Whether this argument is correct or not depends on how Rashford will perform in Barcelona in the 2025-2026 season. If Rashford enjoys his second prime, Manchester United will have quite a bit of heartburn.
Reporter Lee Won-man wman@sportschosun.com
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
