Rio Ferdinand can see the headlines already. If Marcus Rashford truly has gone to Barcelona for around £26 million and rediscovers his peak form, Manchester United won’t just have lost an academy star – they’ll have been taken to the cleaners.
“If Barcelona get him for the reported £26m that we’re talking about and they get that version of Marcus Rashford, that is an absolute robbery, it’s a steal,” Ferdinand said on his YouTube channel, the disbelief obvious. For a man who watched Rashford grow from a skinny teenager into United’s poster boy, the feeling is part frustration, part resignation.
He still wants him to flourish. That much is clear.
“I just say good luck to him, I want him to do well, because I’ve seen him grow as a young player at United and good luck to him in that sense.”
A door closed at Old Trafford
Strip away the sentiment and Ferdinand’s verdict on Rashford’s United future is brutally simple: it’s over.
Asked if he would take Rashford back at Old Trafford, the former defender didn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely! Would you have that Marcus Rashford back? 100 per cent, but I think that ship has sailed. Potentially he’s that good, it’s just that we haven’t seen it for a while at United.”
That line cuts to the heart of the saga. The player who once terrorised defences in the Premier League faded under the glare and the grind. The talent never left; the consistency did. United, wrestling with their own identity crisis, stopped being the place where Rashford could breathe.
Barcelona, on the other hand, looks like oxygen.
Rashford thriving under Barça’s demands
In Spain, Rashford sounds like a man who has found the kind of pressure he craves.
“Barcelona is a fantastic club. A club that is known for winning, and it’s this type of pressure – I want to say pressure but it’s not a bad type of pressure,” he told Sport. “It’s a pressure that you look forward to and a pressure that I want to have whilst I’m playing football. If I’m at a club that doesn’t demand these things then it’s more difficult for me to be motivated. It’s a fantastic environment for me to continue my football journey.”
This isn’t a forward escaping scrutiny; it’s a forward running towards it. The expectations at Barça are relentless, but so far Rashford is answering them.
Eleven goals and 13 assists in 40 appearances across all competitions tell their own story. He’s not just finishing moves, he’s building them, knitting together Flick’s attack in the final third. The numbers don’t scream superstardom, but they speak of influence, of a player embedded in the system rather than orbiting on the fringes.
He already has one trophy in the bag – the Spanish Super Cup earlier this year – and his season is poised on the edge of something far bigger.
Flick’s Barça chasing a treble of sorts
Under Hansi Flick, Barcelona sit seven points clear at the top of La Liga, holding Real Madrid at arm’s length. The margin gives them room, not comfort. At this club, a lead is never a cushion, just a target to defend.
Rashford stands at the centre of that push. La Liga is there to be finished, the Champions League still to be seized.
The next week will stretch Barça’s ambitions in two directions. Atletico Madrid await on Wednesday in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final, a tie that promises tension, collisions, and very little space. These are the nights Rashford was supposed to own at Old Trafford; now he has the stage in blaugrana.
Then comes the Catalan derby against Espanyol at the weekend, a fixture loaded with local pride and potential landmines. Drop points there and the title race tightens. Deliver, and the grip on the league hardens.
From Manchester’s perspective, the picture is stark. A 28-year-old forward, homegrown and once the face of the club, is now leading the line for Barcelona in a season that could end with La Liga and the Champions League in his hands – all for a fee Ferdinand can only describe as “robbery.”
If Rashford keeps playing like this, the question won’t be whether United should have sold him. It will be how they ever allowed his best years to belong to someone else.
