Michael Carrick hinted he wanted to keep Marcus Rashford in his Manchester United squad this season after the forward returned to pre-season training in Ireland this week, ending an 18-month exile from his boyhood club.
Return to training
Rashford hasn't played for United since December 2024 and has spent the last season-and-a-half on loan at Aston Villa and Barcelona, but a year on from being placed in Ruben Amorim's bomb squad, he is back among the first-team squad this week.
He could return to the pitch on Saturday, ironically against Amorim's AC Milan, and with the clock ticking in the transfer window, it now seems more likely that he stays than goes.
Transfer background
Barcelona rejected the chance to sign him permanently for £26million and United don't want to sanction another loan move, especially to a Premier League rival, which has led to Rashford's reintegration this week.
That path has been smoothed by the presence of Carrick as head coach. He replaced Amorim in January and has a long history with Rashford, so much so he believes the 28-year-old could be "exciting" for United this season.
Carrick's view
"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," he said.
"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."
Both parties currently believe Rashford is most likely to remain at the club and while Carrick is ready to work with the academy graduate, he stopped short of guaranteeing he would remain at Old Trafford beyond the end of the transfer window.
"He's our player, he came back Sunday night, he arrived with Kobbie [Mainoo], and Lisandro [Martinez] came the day after, and he's part of the group like anybody else. 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."
To some extent, Rashford feels like a new signing for United and that is something Carrick hinted at in the way he is trying to treat him, and he feels like he will strengthen the squad.
"We're really calm, we just treat it like anybody else coming into the group and there's obviously this slight twist that he knows the club as well as anybody and that's a real positive," he said.
"He's been here all his career, all his life before the last 18 months or so, to understand what it means. That side of things is natural, that's a given. I know he's got history, but I've got history with a number of the players as well, so that doesn't make that a unique situation at all and treat him as exactly like any other player.
"Bringing him into the group and carrying on as normal brings the good things that we haven't got, and we want to get that balance with every individual player, and Marcus has come back and he's in good form, and it's been good to have him around this week."
