Marcus Rashford sends blunt message to Gary Neville after Man Utd return | Football

Marcus Rashford has sent a message to Manchester United legend Gary Neville after his return to his boyhood club.

Rashford’s time in Manchester appeared to be up when he joined Barcelona on loan last summer, a deal that was expected to be made permanent in a £26million deal.

The 28-year-old had made no bones about his desire to extend his stay at the club, but the Catalan giants instead decided to pursue a deal for Newcastle United winger Anthony Gordon.

And while an exit from Old Trafford still seemed the likely outcome earlier in the summer, a lack of serious suitors prepared to meet United’s £40m asking price means the Englishman has now rejoined Michael Carrick’s squad.

Rashford came off the bench for a brief cameo against AC Milan last weekend, and could be in line to feature in United’s first Premier League encounter against Hull City on Saturday.

In a trailer for an upcoming episode of Stick To Football, Neville was already keen to discuss the 28-year-old, but was quickly shut down by fellow Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher.

‘Marcus Rashford, what do we think? Last question,’ Neville said before Carragher quickly interjected: ‘Oh f*****g hell, can we do a podcast without mentioning Rashford? Stop it! Oh my god.

‘It’s like the Trent and Rashford – there was like a little part of the podcast – the Trent part or the Rashford part. He’s just a good player for Man United!’

And responding to the video on X, Rashford made it clear he would appreciate Neville and others giving him some time to settle into the season back at United.

‘Thanks, Jamie. It would be great to be able to get my head down and play football without my name being mentioned every day,’ he wrote.

Rashford has only been back with Carrick’s squad for a short period, but the United head coach said he was already impressed by what he has seen in training.

‘He’s a very good player, and I think if you’re going to have a career over 10 or 15 years, there’s going to be times when things go in a direction and maybe a different direction,’ Carrick recently said.

‘I think there are ups and downs, and that doesn’t judge you as a one-off kind of judgment. It’s what happens over time, and now we’re in a positive place as a group, and Marcus can offer us so much.

‘He has done, and he can do again, so in that respect, it’s quite exciting.

‘He came in, he’s trained really well. I’ve known him a long time, like I’ve known some of the others a long time, so I don’t treat him any different to anybody else, but it’s been good to have him around the group again this week. So I’m really positive with that.’

Elsewhere, former Red Devils captain Wayne Rooney believes Rashford must show the right ‘hunger’ to get his United career back on track.

Speaking on Stick To United, Rooney said: ‘For me, has he got the hunger, does he want to play for Manchester United? You have to rebuild the relationship with the fans and the easiest way to do that is work hard and work on your body language.

‘You could have a bad game, you could give the ball away and make mistakes, but if the fans see you working hard and putting in a shift for the team, they’ll accept that to a certain point.

‘I think Marcus’ body language, even when he came on, it isn’t great. He might have to work with someone to make his body language look better.

“I think his work rate has to improve. If he wants to be at the football club, he just has to knuckle down. He’s the one player that could go and get my goalscoring record.’

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