Harry Maguire has revealed that the Manchester United squad want Marcus Rashford to stay at the club this season after the forward made his return to the first-team squad over the past week.
Rashford's United career appeared over last summer when he was exiled by Ruben Amorim and until coming on for the final 30 minutes of the friendly with AC Milan in Wroclaw, he hadn't played for the club since December 2024.
Rashford's Return and Future
He has spent the last 18 months out on loan and Barcelona could have made his Nou Camp stay permanent, but when they turned down the chance to sign him for £26million, Rashford appeared destined to return to his boyhood club.
Michael Carrick has offered an olive branch this summer and Rashford returned to training in Ireland at the start of the week before featuring against Milan. With two weeks of the window still to go, it remains possible the 28-year-old could leave the club, but Maguire said the squad felt he had something to offer during what is going to be a much busier campaign.
Maguire's Praise and New Signings
"He can improve us, for sure," said Maguire. "I think when you seen when he come on, he threatens the back line really well. He could have even scored for us.
"He's a huge threat to have in your team. So if he's going to stay with us, obviously the transfer window is still open, but we hope as players that he stays and he's a big asset to have. I've played with Marcus for numerous years and I know that playing against him, playing with him in training is going to help us."
Rashford's return will feel like a new signing in many ways and he had a new squad number in Wroclaw, wearing the No.9, although United were keen to stress that was only provisional.
Other than that, transfer business has slowed recently but midfield duo Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans started together in Wroclaw and Maguire has been delighted with the impression they have made in pre-season.
Pre-Season and Looking Ahead
"I think they're going to have a big impact because I think they're both at different ages," he said. "I think Andrey's obviously got loads to learn, he's got loads to improve and he's going to do that.
"Youri now is an age where he should come straight into the team, he doesn't need to adapt. It should help us out straight away and I'm sure he's expecting that from himself as well. So two great signings and we're happy to have them."
United finished off their pre-season campaign with a 4-2 defeat to AC Milan, bookending their summer with defeats but they have had a lot of training times and have played six games heading into the start of the competitive action.
It's been an unusual summer for Maguire, who was a controversial omission from Thomas Tuchel's World Cup squad and instead enjoyed a break before spending a full pre-season with his club, and he's feeling good for it.
"I think it's been a really pleasing pre-season, no doubt about it," he said. "I think we've seen, we've had lots of good performances. Individually, I'm feeling in a good place going into the Premier League next week.
"And I think we're wanting to play much further up the pitch, we want to play more aggressive, more on the front foot. Like I said, today was the only game probably where I didn't feel like we did ourselves justice in that aspect.
"We had a lot of high regains and a lot of chances created from that, but we didn't sustain our pressure anywhere near good enough. But that's again, it's something that, it's not going to be perfect, it's something that we're going to need to work on. Next week's the one that's counting and I'm sure we're going to be ready."
