{"id":24259,"date":"2026-05-16T03:31:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/24259\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T03:31:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:31:24","slug":"marcus-rashford-roma-star-obstructs-26m-man-utd-move-as-barcelona-belittling-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/24259\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcus Rashford: Roma star obstructs \u00a326m Man Utd move as Barcelona belittling continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Barcelona refusing to meet Manchester United\u2019s \u00a326m demand to sign Marcus Rashford continues to perplex English football fans, who baulk at the miserly La Liga giants\u2019 attempts to drive down that price, Catalan counterparts remain torn on the transfer as the Spanish media comes up with new, extraneous evidence to ward them against the England international\u2019s permanent signing.<\/p>\n

Rashford\u2019s stunning free-kick to help Barcelona to a 2-0 win in El Clasico last weekend was his 14th goal in all competitions, to go with 14 assists this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a magician, but if I was, I would stay [at Barcelona],\u201d the 28-year-old said after the game. \u201cWe will see. I came here to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a wonderful team, they\u2019re going to win so much in the future; to be a part of that would be special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manager Hansi Flick hailed Rashford\u2019s \u201cfantastic\u201d season but remained coy on his future.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for me, I appreciate Rashford that very much. I think his season was fantastic. He has good numbers, and I am very grateful that and appreciate it greatly.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the season, we will analyse everything, and then we will see what will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

For us Premier League-centric souls, who could barely imagine a forward putting up those sorts of numbers for a big club at that price, any analysis that doesn\u2019t start and end with \u2018\u00a326m is a p*ssing bargain\u2019 \u00a0makes very little sense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now claimed that Manchester United and Barcelona are \u2018set to reopen negotiations next week in the hope of constructing a deal\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That report also suggested \u2018another loan deal is a possibility\u2019 though that\u2019s since been refuted by our friends over at TEAMtalk<\/a> as United are quite rightly of a mind to tell Barcelona to do one and sell Rashford to another willing suitor \u2013 maybe Bayern Munich or Arsenal; very possibly for more than \u00a326m.<\/p>\n

Whether fair or not \u2013 and his goal against Real Madrid provides a significant niggle in this particular argument \u2013 there is a sense among Barcelona fans and avid La Liga viewers in general that Rashford hasn\u2019t done it in the big moments; that he\u2019s something of a flat-track bully compared to his competition for a place in the team.<\/p>\n

But he was never going to usurp either Raphinha or Lamine Yamal. He will have known that the best case scenario would be him becoming the first-choice backup, able to get enough game time to make an impact through rotation and injuries.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what\u2019s happened and Barcelona will be hard pushed to find any winger superior to Rashford who\u2019s going to be happy to play second fiddle, let alone one who\u2019s available at that price.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been suggested that Barcelona consider his \u20ac270,000-per-week wages too steep, but he\u2019s only the seventh-highest earner and, again, are they likely to land a forward who averages a goal contribution every 90 minutes for less?<\/p>\n

Whatabout Malen?<\/p>\n

In search of further reasons why Barcelona shouldn\u2019t sign Rashford, Spanish outlet MARCA<\/a> have engaged in some very odd whataboutery concerning Donyell Malen, whose loan move from Aston Villa to Roma has just been made permanent for \u00a321m. You can see where this is going.<\/p>\n

The Dutch winger has been outstanding, revitalising the Roma attack and scoring a remarkable 14 goals in 18 games to put them right in the frame to qualify for the Champions League. They\u2019re currently level on 67 points with fourth-placed Milan with two games to play.<\/p>\n

The gist of the article is \u2018if you think Rashford\u2019s been so good, look what this cheaper guy has done for Roma\u2019.<\/p>\n

While Malen has \u2018become the offensive leader of Roma\u2019, Rashford has \u2018not yet cleared all doubts\u2019 at Barcelona, with Malen\u2019s performances \u2018holding up a mirror\u2019 for Rashford\u2019s to be compared to.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s apples and oranges, it\u2019s Roma and Barcelona, it\u2019s Serie A and La Liga, it\u2019s a key role and a bit-part role. There is a comparison to be drawn as both players sought to rebuild their careers after relative struggles in the Premier League, but that really is the only comparison.<\/p>\n

But it speaks to this peculiar compulsion in Spain to denigrate Rashford\u2019s achievements this season as fans and the media continue to try, in a baffling and desperate way, to convince themselves that \u00a326m isn\u2019t an absolute bloody bargain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Barcelona refusing to meet Manchester United\u2019s \u00a326m demand to sign Marcus Rashford continues to perplex English football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,9244,10101,1707,263,936,273,8260],"class_list":{"0":"post-24259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-donyell-malen","10":"tag-f365-says","11":"tag-front-page","12":"tag-manchester-united","13":"tag-marcus-rashford","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}