Man United news: Stan Collymore criticises Marcus Rashford deal

Earlier this week, Marcus Rashford left Man United to join La Liga champions Barcelona on a season-long loan, which includes an option to buy in the region of £25m.

Rashford was one of the players earmarked to leave Man United this summer, and although the plan had been to cash in now, he has only joined Barcelona on loan – and what’s more, the buy option is significantly lower than the one that Aston Villa had last season (£40m).

Collymore believes Man United have lost out in Rashford deal

In his exclusive CaughtOffside column, Stan Collymore has given his reaction to Barcelona signing Rashford, and how Man United have emerged from the negotiations.

“I think this Rashford deal is poor for Man United. For a player at the peak of his career that they’ve nurtured to possibly only get £25m for him if Barcelona buy him next summer, having paid an absolute arm and a leg in wages over the years, isn’t recompense at all.

“For the player, it’s quite unbelievable. He had a poor last season at Man United, goes to Aston Villa. Cameo appearances that were not particularly great, but by the way that Gary Lineker talks, you’d thought it was Lionel Messi playing for Villa last season.

“For Barcelona, what do they get? They get a player on the cheap whose wages will be nowhere near the £300k mark if they were to buy him permanently next summer. But they get the best of the deal, quite simply, because they’re going to get a player that’s motivated to play for them. All that was coming out through the season last season was, Marcus Rashford won’t sign for Aston Villa permanently because he’s waiting for Barcelona.

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“I think the greatest story here is how players can effectively be so poor for a couple of seasons, basically, including the loan at Villa, and still dictate where they want to go to a club that’s playing in the Champions League and arguably among the four or five biggest clubs on the planet. And I find that remarkable.

“I think that from a Barcelona perspective, it’s only because they’re still coming out of that negative financial situation that they were in, so that they were doing lots of wheeling and dealing in the last three or four years. But Marcus Rashford, make no bones about it, he’s a very, very, very lucky boy, because if football had any logic, he would probably be getting a move to Blackburn, Norwich or another aspirational championship club – certainly not one of the top four or five clubs in the world.”