Barcelona will ask Manchester United if they can extend Marcus Rashford’s loan for another season to avoid paying the full £26million asking price this summer.
Rashford watched from the sidelines on Wednesday night as the two players keeping him out of the team, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, ran riot sending Barcelona into the quarter-finals at Newcastle’s expense.
But despite his struggles to consolidate a starting place the club want to keep him. The fact that Joan Laporta won Sunday’s election and will remain president until 2031 only strengthens that desire.
Laporta has spoken about wanting to keep current coach Hansi Flick in charge for the next five years and the German manager wants Rashford to stay.
Barcelona are confident United will accept a second loan if there’s an obligatory buy clause with Barca paying part of the £26m fee at the end of this season and Rashford signing permanently in 2027.
Rashford’s numbers cannot be argued with. He has a goal every 97 minutes in the Champions League. There’s a lower return in LaLiga where he has only hit the net four times in 14 starts, but in the domestic competition it’s the assist-count that stands out – only team-mate Yamal has more assists in the competition.
Barcelona want to keep Marcus Rashford beyond this season when his loan deal expires – but want him on loan again next term to avoid paying Manchester United £26million this summer
He was an unused substitute Barcelona’s thumping 7-2 win over Newcastle on Wednesday
What he has been unable to do is convince Flick he’s the centre-forward to replace the ageing Robert Lewandowski who will leave at the end of the season. On Wednesday night it was Ferran Torres who replaced the Pole.
That has left him up against Raphinha and Yamal for a starting berth and replacing them, as their exhibition against Newcastle showed, is mission impossible.
He started warming up during the second half but with Raphinha’s brilliant assist teeing-up Fermin Lopez for Barcelona’s fourth and the former Leeds winger then whipping in a corner that Lewandowski headed in for No 5, the job was done while Rashford was still stretching.
Both of those goals were celebrated in the corner where Rashford and the other substitutes were warming up and he was part of the huddle that greeted both.
He’s in the Champions League quarter-finals and he has a Barca future but it’s conditioned by United accepting the Spanish club’s terms and by him accepting that Raphinha and Lamine are streets ahead.