Marcus Rashford has claimed that Manchester United’s rebuild has been stuck in limbo since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013, because it never truly started.
Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast with Gary Lineker, the 27-year-old, who joined Barcelona on loan last month, said the club has lacked a clear direction for more than a decade.
“People say we’ve been in a transition for years, but to be in a transition you have to start it,” Rashford said. “We’ve had so many managers, ideas and strategies that you end up in no man’s land.”
The England star argued that United’s “reactionary” approach has left them behind rivals, contrasting it with Liverpool’s patience with Jürgen Klopp. “When Liverpool went through this, they got Klopp and stuck with him. They didn’t win in the beginning, but they had a plan and stuck to it.”
Rashford also praised Ferguson’s era, where one set of principles ran through both the first team and academy. “Any successful club has principles. If your direction is always changing, you can’t expect to win the league.”
United are coming off their worst-ever Premier League campaign but have spent over £200m this summer on new signings, including Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko.
Rashford, who scored 138 goals in 426 appearances for United, said the situation hurts him “100 per cent, not just as a player but as a fan.”
