Marcus Rashford has publicly thanked Jamie Carragher for defending him during an exchange with Gary Neville on the latest episode of The Overlap podcast. The Manchester United forward remains at the club after a proposed move to Barcelona fell through.
Rashford's future at Manchester United
Rashford's £325,000-a-week salary has proven to be an obstacle to any move, and manager Michael Carrick has welcomed him back at Carrington following a post-World Cup break. Barcelona chose not to activate the £26million clause in Rashford's loan deal and instead moved to sign Anthony Gordon from Newcastle.
With fewer than two weeks of the transfer window left, Rashford looks set to remain at United for the season. He still has two years left to run on his contract with the Premier League club.
The Overlap exchange
Neville attempted to discuss Rashford's situation on the podcast, but was dismissed by Carragher. Neville said: "Marcus Rashford, what do we think? Last question."
Carragher responded: "Oh f****** hell. Can we do a podcast without mentioning Rashford? Stop it! Oh my god. It's like the Trent [Alexander-Arnold] and Rashford - there was like a little part of the podcast - the Trent part or the Rashford part."
To which Neville replied: "How is Trent?" An exasperated Carragher said: "Oh my God." Before Neville continued: "No, but he's come back to United."
Carragher finished the conversation, saying: "So what? Oh my God. He's just a good player for Man United! F******* hell. He gets talked about more than some of the greatest players in United's history. He's a good player. He's a good lad isn't he."
Rashford's response
Writing on X, Rashford took a jab at Neville as he said: "Thanks, Jamie. It would be great to be able to get my head down and play football without my name being mentioned every day."
Carrick is taking an optimistic view of the situation. "He's a very good player, and I think if you're going to have a career over 10 or 15 years, there's going to be times when things go in a direction and maybe a different direction," the United boss said last week.
"I think there are ups and downs, and that doesn't judge you as a one-off kind of judgment. It's what happens over time, and now we're in a positive place as a group, and Marcus can offer us so much. He has done, and he can do again, so in that respect, it's quite exciting."
He added: "He came in, he's trained really well. I've known him a long time, like I've known some of the others a long time, so I don't treat him any different to anybody else, but it's been good to have him around the group again this week. So I'm really positive with that."
United open their campaign against newly-promoted Hull City this weekend.
