Once one of the Premier League’s brightest stars, Marcus Rashford fell out of favor last season and lost his place at Manchester United. That led to a six-month loan at Aston Villa, followed by another temporary move this summer—this time to Barcelona.
Now a few weeks removed from his departure from England, Rashford has shared a stark and critical view of the club’s recent struggles. “We’ve been way below where we deem United to be,” he said in a recent interview on The Rest is Football podcast with former players Gary Lineker and Micah Richards.
“But then if you take a step back, which I’ve been able to do, especially over the last six months—what do you expect? People say we’ve been in a transition for years. To be in a transition, you have to start the transition. So it’s like the actual transition’s not started yet,” Marcus added.
Since leaving the Red Devils at the start of 2025, Rashford has gained enough distance to reflect on the club’s decisions and has arrived at a clear conclusion: they’ve lost their way since the departure of legendary head coach Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson spent 27 years at the helm from 1986 to 2013, winning 38 trophies—including 13 Premier League titles and 2 UEFA Champions League titles. Since then, United have had six full-time head coaches and four interim managers, managing just seven trophies in total—none of them Premier League or Champions League titles.
Rashford points to Liverpool as a model
In the same interview, Rashford offered deeper thoughts on United’s struggles over the past decade. “At times I feel like United have just been … we’re hungry to win, so we’ll always try to adapt and to sign players that fit this system. But it’s reactionary,” he said. “If your direction’s always changing, you can’t expect to be able to win the league.”
To back up his point, the 27-year-old forward referenced one of United’s Premier League rivals. “When Liverpool went through this, they got (Jurgen) Klopp, they stuck with him. They didn’t win in the beginning. People only remember his final few years when he was competing with (Manchester) City and winning the biggest trophies – he certainly didn’t win for three years,” Marcus said.
“To start a transition, you have to make a plan and stick to it. So this is the thing that I feel – it’s not easy. But this is where I speak about being realistic with what your situation is,” Rashford added. “I feel like we’ve had that many different managers and different ideas and different strategies in order to win … you end up in the middle of—you end up in no man’s land.”
New challenges ahead for Rashford
While it’s clear Rashford remains emotionally tied to Manchester United, he now faces entirely different challenges at Barcelona. He joins a team that, under Hansi Flick, has developed a convincing playing style and delivered results to match.
Last season, the Spanish giants won every domestic trophy available—La Liga, Copa del Rey, and Supercopa de España. Now, the goal is to maintain that dominance and add European silverware, with the UEFA Champions League title—missing since 2015—firmly in their sights.