Hojlund, Dalot react as Marcus Rashford gets ‘right to work’ with Barcelona
Marcus Rashford has taken to social media to show off his first training session since joining Barcelona.
Rashford joined the Blaugrana on loan recently as he seeks to re-ignite his career after falling out of favour at Old Trafford.
The 62-time England international had already spent time on loan at Aston Villa in the second half of last season and was understood to be one of the players Ruben Amorim was keen to get rid of as he re-shapes the Manchester United squad.
Also occupying that list of names are the likes of Antony, Jadon Sancho and Alejandro Garnacho.
Marcus Rashford begins Barcelona training
Rashford’s move to Barcelona had been in the works for some time, with the player making plenty of overtures to Blaugrana wonderkid Lamine Yamal on social media.
The 27-year-old has once again gone online, this time to share the first snaps of him training with his new teammates in Catalonia.
| Manchester United career stats | Marcus Rashford |
| Appearances | 426 |
| Goals | 138 |
| Assists | 77 |
| Trophies | 6 |
“Let’s get right to work with the team,” Rashford captioned his post, including a saluting emoji.
Rashford’s post has garnered plenty of attention, with former Man United teammates Bruno Fernandes, Matthijs de Ligt, Diogo Dalot and Rasmus Hojlund among those to drop it a like — the latter also linked with a Red Devils exit.
Former United defender Timothy Fosu-Mensah replied with a fist-bump emoji, while stars from other clubs liked the post, including Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins — linked with United — and Manchester City defender Rico Lewis.
Rashford not out of the woods yet
Rashford will be relieved to get his move to the Camp Nou, revealing recently that his transfer was motivated by a desire to win trophies and escape a United side ‘in transition’.
“[Manchester United] is in a period of change and they have been for a while,” Rashford said (BBC, 24 July). “I want to win the biggest trophies, and I feel like Barcelona is a huge club in the football world, so it is the perfect place.”
However, Barcelona are currently facing a battle to even register Rashford in their squad amid financial issues — having had similar struggles with Dani Olmo last year.
“It’s a weird situation this one with Rashford. While they may have agreed a deal and he’s going down there, and apparently he’s training and all the rest of it, they still don’t know if they can register him,” former Everton and Aston Villa chief Keith Wyness told Football Insider.
“That’s the weird situation about this whole thing. In order for him to be registered, the claims are that he’s reduced his wages, etc. Well, from my reading of it, I don’t think he’s reduced his wages.
“What they’ve probably done, and this is a guess, is that he would have been paid a certain amount of money for his image rights and that would have been part of his wages. So he probably won’t lose any money because he’ll just do it separately.
“It just means that there is no guarantee for those image rights from Barcelona. So I don’t think he’s actually going to be going to the poor house due to taking a cut in his wages.
“It’s this whole incredible Barcelona situation that we had with Olmo last year, where he wasn’t registered. Rashford could end up in a difficult situation here if they’re not careful, but they’ve obviously been given assurances that they can get this through.“