Marcus Rashford has offered a withering assessment of Manchester United’s decline, claiming a lack of identity since Sir Alex Ferguson retired has marooned the club in “no man’s land”.
The on-loan Barcelona striker insists the club’s predicament hurts him as a United player and fan, and laid the blame firmly at Old Trafford’s door. Too many managerial changes and different strategies had undermined the playing principles established under Ferguson, said Rashford, and prevented any meaningful transition. He believes United will not be serious contenders for the Premier League again unless they keep faith with a clear plan.
United endured their worst top-flight campaign since being relegated in 1973-74 when finishing 15th last season. Ruben Amorim, who sidelined Rashford before his loans to Aston Villa and Barcelona, is United’s sixth permanent manager since Ferguson stepped down in 2013, the last time the club won the title. Rashford came through United’s academy while Ferguson was in charge.
“Show me a successful team that just adapts,” Rashford told the Rest is Football podcast with Gary Lineker and Micah Richards. “When Fergie was in charge, not only the principles for the first team, the whole academy set-up so you could pick players from 15 years and over – that’s a full generation. And they’d all understand the principles of playing the Man United way, right?
“You see it with any team that’s been successful over a period of time: they have principles that any coach that comes in, any player that comes in, has to align to these principles or be able to add to these principles. Whereas at times I feel like United have just been … we’re hungry to win, so we’ll always try to adapt and to sign players that fit this system. But it’s reactionary.
“If your direction’s always changing, you can’t expect to be able to win the league. Yeah, you might win some cup tournaments, but it’s because you do have a good coach and you do have good players and you have match winners in your team – you’re not there by accident. This is what some people forget.
“So yeah, we’ve been way below where we deem United to be. But then if you take a step back, which I’ve been able to do, especially over the last six months – what do you expect? People say we’ve been in a transition for years. To be in a transition, you have to start the transition. So it’s like the actual transition’s not started yet.”
No United manager in the post-Ferguson era has been given three years. Rashford said the club could learn from their fierce rivals Liverpool, who ended a 30-year wait for a top-flight title under Jürgen Klopp in 2020. Klopp joined in October 2015 and secured his first trophy in 2019.
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“When Liverpool went through this, they got Klopp, they stuck with him,” Rashford said. “They didn’t win in the beginning. People only remember his final few years when he was competing with [Manchester] City and winning the biggest trophies – he certainly didn’t win for three years.
“To start a transition, you have to make a plan and stick to it. So this is the thing that I feel – it’s not easy. But this is where I speak about being realistic with what your situation is. I feel like we’ve had that many different managers and different ideas and different strategies in order to win … you end up in the middle of – you end up in no man’s land.”
