The too-much-money problem of Marcus Rashford, Manchester United’s brightest star

Despite the most generous contract United has ever signed, every week and every match Rashford disappoints. Amidst talk of him wanting to leave the club he dreamt about playing for since being a child, JIM WHITE looks at how the best of times have left the footballer feeling desperately unhappy and asks what now for the boy who once had the football world at his feet…

A couple of years ago, if the news had broken that Marcus Rashford wished to leave Manchester United and seek his future elsewhere, the effect on the club’s fans would have been dramatic.

This would have been a break-up as traumatic as any in the history of the game, soundtracked by wailing and gnashing of teeth. After all, born in Wythenshawe and brought up a United fan, Rashford is the epitome of how the club sees itself, discovering, developing and delivering local talent.

From the moment he marked his arrival in the first team, scoring on his debut in February 2016 as an emergency centre forward when he was just 18, he was seized upon by the supporters as something special, the natural born successor to Brian Kidd, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Wes Brown: the Manc Kid in red. For United followers, this was the ultimate football hero: one of their own.

And yet, now he has announced that he wishes to go, there are few of red persuasion mourning his departure. Most have greeted it with a resigned shrug, agreeing with his assessment that the end of the United road has been reached. Most acknowledge that he would be better off seeking fresh pastures. That is if anywhere else will have him.

The truth is the decline in Rashford’s reputation over the past couple of years has been as precipitous as any in the history of the game. Once, he terrified opponents both for his club and his country, his pace and power extraordinary to behold.

Now, nothing seems to work for him. His attempts to better an opposition full back invariably end in failure, goals are rarer than England World Cup wins, his body language offers up a new lexicon of hunched shoulders and resigned expressions.

And away from the game, where so recently he was a National Treasure, the stories these days are almost entirely negative. There are yarns of 12-hour tequila benders, of smashing up ludicrously pricy motors, of snubbing autograph hunters. Even the news of him the other day going back to his old school to hand out Christmas presents came shrouded in the suspicion of a timely PR stunt.

Instead of kicking on and becoming the most explosive forward of his generation, instead of taking the responsibility as a senior player for the club he has supported all his life, instead of ensuring that he finally realises the genius within him, he has apparently reversed into a permanent sulk.

How has it come to this? How did a player who seemed destined for greatness, the United stalwart who achieved such universal respect even Liverpool fans applauded his philanthropy, slip into irrelevance? And what is now left for him?

For those who baulked at the very idea that a wealthy young man should show concern for his fellow citizens, the correlation between his declining fortunes on the pitch and his work off it is all too obvious. Never mind chivvying the government to do something to ensure poor children were fed in the pandemic, they reckoned he needed to stay in his lane. Stick to football, Marcus, was the widespread cry. Otherwise, look what happens.

Others will suggest that it is all down to money, that he has been weighed down by cash. And it is hard to argue that, while in possession of the most generous contract United have ever signed, he has provided value for money. Every week, every match he disappoints.

For some, it is the entourage of advisers, spinners and social media operators. As one United observer put it, “There is a whole village dependent on Marcus’s wages.”

Yet, for all the flotilla of assistants, the player’s mental wellbeing seems to have been less carefully curated. In the most sophisticated environment of modern medical science, he appears to be alone with what is going on inside his head, left to sort it out on his own.

When he was a boy, it was from his mother Melanie Maynard that he drew all his support. She was his role model, someone who worked endless hours to keep food on the table for her family of four. It was her work ethic that drove him through the Manchester United academy, where he was renowned as the hardest grafter of his and many a generation.

How did a player who seemed destined for greatness, the United stalwart who achieved such universal respect even Liverpool fans applauded his philanthropy, slip into irrelevance?

It was her approach to life that made him seize his opportunity with such determination, like when he scored twice on his debut for the United first team. It was to her faith that he turned when he was so horribly traduced by online trolls after missing a penalty at the Euros final in 2021. And it was her Christian values that informed his lockdown campaigning for children’s school meals.

But his mum’s influence is no longer central in his life. The simple fact is, for the past couple of years, even as his wealth and status have expanded exponentially, he has looked ever less comfortable in his own skin.

A succession of United managers have tried to extract the best from him, knowing their own success largely depends on him firing at full throttle. Ruben Amorim, the latest in the hot seat, and a man who requires of his players relentless effort, already appears to have lost patience, dropping him from the team for the last couple of fixtures.

Now, whether encouraged by his entourage, or whether through his own despair, Rashford has decided the issue in his life is his employer. Unchained, he hopes to thrive. Move on and all will be well. Divorce from the one-time love of his life is the best way forward. The problem is: where does he go? Who will have him? You imagine potential suitors will have watched him sinking these past couple of seasons.

It would be some risk for a club to take on someone in the hope that they might rediscover what they once were. Not least someone who would expect an £18m-a-year payday, the kind of salary only a half a dozen clubs in the world – including Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester City – could match, clubs which generally require some sort of star return on such significant investment.

Once for Marcus Rashford, all that mattered in the world was playing football for Manchester United. That was his hope, his ambition, his desire. Now he appears to believe that the one thing that once drove him on is a weight around his neck, suffocating his talent. The sad thing is, there is many a United fan who reckons he might well be right.