Marcus Rashford’s interview with Spanish Youtubers xBuyer has been reported just about everywhere over the past couple of days due to comments he made about playing with Lamine Yamal.
Asked if he would like to play with the gifted teenager (28m20s on the video), Rashford replied:
“Sure. Everybody in the world wants to play with the best…you know, so … hopefully, we’ll see.”
The message seems clear: Marcus Rashford wants to play for Barcelona and is hoping he will get to do so.
Rashford would love to play for Barcelona Since his fall-out with United head coach Ruben Amorim, even when he was on loan at Aston Villa who had an option to buy him for £40 million, it was widely reported that Rashy only had eyes for the Blaugrana.
However, to hear those words from his own mouth, brazenly on a YouTube interview, caused a stir. Multi-million pound transfers are delicate . Players involved should maintain silence. If they say they want to play for a specific club, that immediately weakens the hand of the selling club in negotiations with that dream destination.
It can smooth the way to the player getting what he wants, but it can backfire if the selling club refuses to bow to the conditions demanded by the buyers – in this case, almost certainly a loan deal, with United paying a portion of Rashford’s wages, and an option, but not obligation, to buy him at the end of the season.
Did he really say that? Whilst it is almost certainly true that the 27 year old would love to move to the Camp Neu, there is a nagging doubt about the now infamous video.
Nobody seems to be mentioning the clear cuts in the video editing between the phrases “Everybody in the world wants to play with the best” and “You know, so” and “Hopefully, we’ll see.”
Was the video doctored to make him look like he was saying “hopefully, we’ll see” in response to the Yamal question because it made for a better story? What was in the part that ended up on the editing room floor?
For all we know, the England star may have innocently said something like “Everybody in the world wants to play with the best. And the way he’s playing, he could end up being even the best to have ever played, … you know, so I’m rooting for him to kick on and I think he will, hopefully, we’ll see.”
Does it matter? Rashford has been branded a traitor by a lot of United fans for another interview in December when he blatantly suggested he wanted a “fresh challenge”. He consistently turned up late for training at United (something he explains in this video as being due to doing college studies after a Europa League game and then getting stuck in traffic on his way from the college to Carrington).
Well, yes, it does matter, it is one thing to be open to a transfer and another completely to basically announce to the world who you want to play for.
Rashford himself could have gone public to say the video was edited to make it appear he said something he didn’t say. He could have conveyed that message to United. Perhaps he doesn’t care, or perhaps the edit was only slight and did not really change the gist of what he did say.
We will probably never know, but for now, let’s give the star the benefit of the doubt.
Featured image Mike Hewitt via Getty Images
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Red Billy Red Billy is the managing editor of The Peoples Person, author of three books and totally obsessed with football’s transfer market. Billy still insists Matteo Darmian and Alex Telles could have made it at United given half a chance.
