Barcelona sporting director Deco has outlined why Marcus Rashford found a fresh start at Camp Nou after a difficult period at Manchester United. Deco said the England forward \u201csuffered\u201d early in his career at United and now \u201cHe\u2019s happy with us,\u201d Deco explained in an interview with The Times, hinting that Rashford had become the opposite with his life at United.<\/p>\n
Rashford enjoyed a standout 2022\u201323 season under Erik ten Hag, becoming the only United player since Sir Alex Fergusion retired 10 years earlier to score 30 goals in a single season. The draft records that his form had otherwise been inconsistent since 2021, and he was pushed to the fringes by Ruben Amorim within weeks of the Portuguese coach\u2019s appointment last November.<\/p>\n
Rashford finished 2024\u201325 with Aston Villa and moved to Barcelona for the 2025\u201326 season on loan. The loan has produced an immediate impact: 17 goals and assists in 18 appearances so far. Deco highlighted Rashford\u2019s adaptability as a key reason for signing him. \u201cMarcus is a fantastic player. He faced the responsibility of becoming an important player at Man Utd\u2014United, like us, are one of the biggest clubs in the world\u2014too young. He suffered a bit with this change of generation at United too. If you see United in the last five years, they had difficulties rebuilding the team, to become stronger again. He was there. So, it\u2019s not easy for a player [from whom] people demand a lot. When you are an important player, you have a lot of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deco added: \u201cWe were looking for a player like him on the market. A player that could play in the three positions up front. We were able to sign Marcus on loan now because of his desire to play for Barcelona . He waited a lot. He knew that we were dealing with financial rules. But he was patient. He waited and we\u2019re happy to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aston Villa declined a \u00a340 million option to sign Rashford permanently last season. Barcelona\u2019s option is reportedly lower, at around \u00a328 million, and is likely to expire when the loan ends on June 30. Deco suggested they are unlikely to decide on the option before the end of the season. Barcelona\u2019s ongoing financial constraints and recent registration timing issues remain part of the background to the deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deco: Rashford ‘suffered’ at United, is ‘happy’ at Barcelona after loan revival and versatility ’25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,1163],"tags":[1081,983,1021],"class_list":["post-4807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-transfers","tag-adaptation","tag-agents","tag-amorim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}