Michael Carrick hints Marcus Rashford ‘not on the market’ as he calls for extra Man Utd transfers

Michael Carrick has hinted Marcus Rashford is not for sale as he demands more Manchester United transfers before the window slams shut

Michael Carrick has suggested he’s keen to retain Marcus Rashford within his Manchester United squad this season after the striker rejoined pre-season training in Ireland this week, bringing an 18-month absence from his boyhood club to an end.

Rashford hasn’t featured for United since December 2024 and has spent the previous season-and-a-half on loan spells at Aston Villa and Barcelona, but 12 months after being relegated to Ruben Amorim’s bomb squad, he has returned to the first-team group this week.

He could make his comeback on Saturday, ironically facing Amorim’s AC Milan, and with time running out in the transfer window, it appears increasingly probable that he remains rather than departs.

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Barcelona turned down the opportunity to sign him permanently for £26million and United are reluctant to sanction another loan arrangement, particularly to a Premier League competitor, reports the Manchester Evening News.

That route has been facilitated by Carrick’s presence as head coach. He succeeded Amorim in January and shares extensive history with Rashford, so much so he believes the 28-year-old could prove “exciting” for United this season.

“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.”

At present, both parties believe Rashford is most likely to stay at the club and while Carrick is prepared to work with the academy product, he stopped short of guaranteeing his future at Old Trafford beyond the end of the transfer window.

“He’s our player, he came back Sunday night, he arrived with Kobbie, and Lisandro 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.”

Carrick has also urged his Manchester United superiors to “keep pushing for more” during the transfer window, having expressed a desire for additional quality and depth ahead of the new season.

United have splashed out £85million on securing Karl Darlow, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans this summer, but it’s now been a month since they last finalised a deal and less than three weeks remain of the transfer window.

Carrick is keen to bring in more fresh faces, with a left-back and central midfielder on his wish list, and he recognises that his squad will face diverse challenges this season, especially with a return to the Champions League.

While he is content with the business carried out thus far, he believes further action is required to prepare the squad to compete on all four fronts this season.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good balance in all when you lay the squad out, but we would like more, we need to keep pushing for more.

“There’s one or two areas where we’d like to improve and we feel that there’s the possibility to improve, but again, that needs to be something that we can do that makes us better and improves the group.

“Whether that’s quality or whether that’s a little bit of depth. That’s something we’ve got to manage. That’s pretty obvious.”

United have splashed out less than Ipswich Town and Coventry City so far this summer and they have been overshadowed by their competitors.

They remain the sole ‘big six’ club not to shell out £100million on a player, with City, Chelsea and Tottenham all achieving that feat this summer. Liverpool managed it twice in 2025 and could repeat the trick if they secure Bradley Barcola.

At Old Trafford, the transfer record of £89million on Paul Pogba has stood firm for a decade and another modest summer appears to be on the cards.

That poses a dilemma for Carrick, who harbours title-winning aspirations but must go toe-to-toe with teams who are throwing money around, and the United head coach acknowledged there might come a moment when United have to shatter their own transfer record.

“A little bit depends on what position that is and what you’ve got and what dynamics you need at certain points,” he said. “Sometimes you do need that if it’s the right player.

“Again, it’s not purely on money, the money doesn’t guarantee you, it needs to be the right player and a better player for what we’ve got. It’s something [that] over time we need to be pushing to look to enhance the squad all the time in different ways.”

Carrick said United need to “keep pushing” in relation to recruitment on four occasions during a 25-minute conversation at the club’s training camp in Carton House this week, but emphasised his dialogue with director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada was positive.

“It’s constant communication of where, what work we need to do, where we want to improve. We’re pretty clear in the messages that we need to keep pushing and there’s certain things that we want to try and do, but it needs to be right as well.”