Marcus Rashford is standing before me on a sun‑buttered afternoon at the University of California in San Diego in July. He is 25, in prime condition, possesses a rare talent and scored 30 goals for his boyhood club the previous term. He is also 13 days into a bumper new £325,000-a-week, five-year contract that places him as Manchester United’s highest earner, and the calm of pre-season offers boundless optimism for the season to come. Yet despite this there is lack of warmth and near‑zero eye contact from Rashford. It is a puzzle.
How a player holds himself is his choice, but Rashford’s demeanour that day now feels like a telling precursor of his current campaign. On the pitch, across 26 appearances, he has largely provided insipid displays and a return of only four goals and five assists. Off the pitch, meanwhile, he was seen celebrating his birthday in a Manchester nightclub on the evening of the 3-0 derby defeat by Manchester City at Old Trafford in October, and on Friday he reported ill for training after allegedly being out the previous night in Belfast.
