The great imponderable about Marcus Rashford and his stated desire to leave Manchester United is quite how he thinks it’s going to be any different anywhere else.
After all, the prerequisites of professional football are the same wherever it is you play. The requirement to run and chase and commit and fit in and work hard and be generous and selfless will follow Rashford wherever he goes.
Spain, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, America. Football is football. It may look and feel different from afar, as Rashford ponders in isolation just how he cannot be considered good enough or dedicated enough for just about the worst United squad in recent memory. But the truth is that it isn’t. It’s exactly the same.
So now that he has broken cover the truth will dawn on Rashford soon enough. He chose an interesting way to tell journalist Henry Winter of his wish to leave his boyhood club. Back at his old Primary school to hand out Christmas presents to young children, Rashford selected the place where one journey started to deliver news of another one about to end. Why he did it that way, only he will know and possibly care.
The truth is that Rashford’s PR has been as clunky as his football for a very long time but it’s the football that has led him to this juncture now.
Certainly it hasn’t taken the new United manager Ruben Amorim long to work it all out. Amorim’s predecessor Erik ten Hag knew it. A huge portion of the rank and file United fanbase have long known it too. Rashford is not the footballer he once was. He is not the team-mate he once was. He does not have the focus he once had.
Marcus Rashford has admitted he is ready to leave Manchester United after 20 years