The moments that broke Marcus Rashford’s Man Utd career

Wherever Marcus Rashford lands, be it AC Milan or Borussia Dortmund, he carries with him the promise of gold. Interest is fired by the vital player he has been rather than the distant figure he has become at Manchester United.

At his peak he was a wonder, fleet of foot and scorer of great goals. He has bulged the net in Barcelona and Paris, cracked them in at the Etihad, the Emirates, scored big goals against Liverpool. That talent has not gone away. Mining it is the issue.

Something is holding back the player who cracked 30 goals in Erik ten Hag’s first season. All the promise of the Ten Hag mission dissipated in season two, taking Rashford’s form with it. Prospective clubs are invested in the idea that the diminution in output can be sourced to the disfunction at Old Trafford not him.

Then again not everybody phoned in sick from a Belfast bar. That mad bender 12 months ago signified the end of Rashford at United, a point from which he was never able to rebuild relationships, or rekindle the romance with the club he joined as a boy.

It was Rashford’s misfortune to emerge during a period of upheaval. The end of empire is always messy, yet he was a symbol of hope, another babe from the academy fulfilling the Busby brief.

The starburst against Midtjylland followed by the double against Arsenal in the reign of Louis van Gaal was truly a gift for United fans desperate for a symbol of renewal.

Rashford became so important he was pretty much flogged by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, playing through injury to back and shoulder that would eventually require surgery.

Before submitting to the scalpel in the summer of 2021, he would pick out Paul Pogba in January that year for the goal at Burnley that sent United top of the league for the first time in the post-Fergie era.

A month later he would become the fourth youngest United player to notch 250 appearances, a milestone to add to the one he achieved on Boxing Day 2020, when, against Leicester City, he became the third youngest to hit 50 Premier League goals.

These achievements were laid down in chaotic circumstances, the fans in open revolt against the Glazer ownership, the board led by a cohort of economics graduates with little intuitive feel for the business at hand. Rashford was the link the United supporters knew and loved, one of their own fighting for the shirt.

His fame hit an incredible peak during Covid, when he took on the government over free school meals and won. The climbdown by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was greeted like a 20-yarder at the Stretford End. Suddenly Rashford was a national hero as well as a football icon.

Though the flowering of a maturing Rashford was yet to come, the fracture he is negotiating now might be linked to that period, when the non-footballing side of his career was briefly in the hands of Roc Nation, the management company launched by American music artist Jay-Z, who helped to oversee his campaigning.

The relationship lasted barely a year, Rashford ending it in mid-2021, but it left behind a changed reputation.

This was a great pity and was perhaps a factor in the push back against him when form dipped. There was clearly turmoil in his private life, too, with the split from his long-time partner, which coincided with the Belfast misstep.

The familiar gesture of a forefinger to the temple during stripped-back goal celebrations became the preferred signifier of defiance towards those who had turned against him.

You can’t break me, pal, it screams. But something did break. And that was his relationship with United.

At 27, interestingly the same age as that other troubled soul, George Best, when he stepped away from the club he loved, Rashford has time to come again.

Best did also but by then was a willing accomplice to the fame game that consumed him. Rashford clearly is not. And he still loves United. “When I leave it’s going to be ‘no hard feelings’. You’re not going to have any negative comments from me about Manchester United,” he said.

“If I know that a situation is already bad I’m not going to make it worse. I’ve seen how other players have left in the past and I don’t want to be that person. When I leave I’ll make a statement and it will be from me.”

When that time comes, wherever it comes, we will learn soon enough whether Rashford might become again the player he was. You only get one second chance.