If United, who finished 15th in the Premier League last season, don’t want Rashford – why are La Liga champions Barcelona after him?<\/p>\n
Barca haven’t exactly struggled for goals over the past year, scoring 102 on their way to winning the league.<\/p>\n
They also netted 43 as they reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2024-25, the second-most in a single campaign. <\/p>\n
If anything, their shortcomings were at the back rather than up front.<\/p>\n
But that hasn’t stopped them seeking attacking reinforcements.<\/p>\n
“Strengthening the left-hand side of the forward line has been Barcelona’s priority all summer and, for a long time, it appeared they’d be successful in snapping up their number one target, Nico Williams,” said Spanish football writer Andy West.<\/p>\n
“But the Athletic Bilbao winger eventually opted to sign a new contract with his current club, so Barca were forced to look elsewhere, with an attempted move for Liverpool’s Luis Diaz also falling through.”<\/p>\n
While they would have been prepared to pay a fee for both Williams and Diaz, there is a financial advantage to signing Rashford – the deal would initially be on loan with an option to buy.<\/p>\n
“Barcelona’s long-standing financial problems are still an issue and they were hoping to raise funds by selling goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, who has been supplanted by new signing Joan Garcia,” added West.<\/p>\n
“But that plan has been foiled by the German veteran requiring back surgery, which means that signing Rashford on loan has become even more enticing.”<\/p>\n
Stone added: “If it is a loan with an option to buy as expected, Barca can’t lose.<\/p>\n
“Don’t forget, Chelsea effectively loaned Jadon Sancho for a season, then sent him back to Manchester United despite having an obligation to buy after an inconsistent campaign.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If United, who finished 15th in the Premier League last season, don’t want Rashford – why are La…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-276401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114883484887042400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}