Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has broken his silence on Marcus Rashford amid the reported interest in the Manchester United forward.
Manchester United are set to undergo significant changes this summer after what has been one of their most disappointing seasons in recent history.
With no European football on the horizon, new manager Ruben Amorim will have a transfer budget of around £100 million, and any additional funds will need to come from player sales.
Several players are expected to leave the club, including those currently out on loan, such as Marcus Rashford and Antony.
Rashford, 27, is spending the season on loan at Aston Villa, but a permanent move to the Midlands club appears unlikely. Instead, the England international is believed to be targeting a move abroad — a preference he had even before departing Old Trafford in January.
Barcelona are the club who seem to be Rashford’s dream destination, and their manager Hansi Flick has broken his silence on the United forward.
Flick breaks silence on fantastic Rashford
Rashford was close to joining Barcelona in the mid-season window but their failure to send Ansu Fati out on loan meant that there was no space for such an addition.
Fati is now set to move to AS Monaco next term and Barcelona’s sporting director Deco has confirmed that there is interest in Rashford from Camp Nou.
Flick has now followed up on those comments, and despite saying that he doesn’t usually talk about players at other clubs, he stated that both Rashford and other target Luiz Diaz are ‘fantastic players’.
“Normally I don’t want to speak about players that are not in my team, but of course both of them are fantastic players,” Flick told reporters on Saturday afternoon.
“I like them and we will see what happens – but of course they are fantastic players.”
It remains to be seen whether Barcelona would be willing to cough up around £40 million for Rashford, as well as his high wage packet.
United need to get summer right
United want to sell several players this summer, particularly because they will not need major depth due to having no European football next term.
Losing the Europa League final was a terrible moment but one of the positives could be that a real clear-up happens within the squad.
There is no reason that major changes do not happen, and then the club have to be smarter with their recruitment. Complaints are inevitable if the replacements are even worse than the players they are selling.
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For example, not many people were complaining about Scott McTominay’s sale to Napoli but then United spent large amounts on Manuel Ugarte, who is certainly no upgrade on the Scotsman.
That cannot happen for more players, and as always, it always seems to come back to the recruitment and getting that right.
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