It's now or never for Marcus Rashford at Man United

LONDON — Marcus Rashford has one week to save his career, but it might be too late before he finally realises what is at stake.

The Manchester United forward either seals a move away from Old Trafford before Monday’s transfer deadline, or he accepts Ruben Amorim’s brutal assessment of his situation at the club and makes the changes, on and off the pitch, which are being demanded by his head coach. If he fails on both counts, then the 27-year-old will be heading for the wilderness with his once-promising career reduced to regret and what-might-have-been.

At 27, and with his form evaporating during the past 18 months — a period that’s also seen him miss out on Euro 2024 and fall out of the England picture — Rashford is running out of time as a footballer, and Amorim is clearly in no mood to make concessions to accommodate United’s highest-paid player.

When asked after United’s narrow 1-0 win at Fulham on Sunday whether Rashford had a way back into the team because strikers Rasmus Højlund and Joshua Zirkzee are failing to deliver — neither has scored on 2025, and have managed just one goal between them since the beginning of December — Amorim had the opportunity to offer Rashford an olive branch and encouragement that the door was still open. Instead, Amorim slammed it shut with a withering assessment of the impression that Rashford has made since he arrived as coach two months ago.

“It’s the same, it’s always the same reason,” Amorim said when asked why he continued to overlook Rashford. “The reason is the training, the way I see what footballers should do in training, in life, it’s every day, every detail.

“So if things don’t change, I will not change. It’s the same situation for every player. If you do the maximum, if you do the right things, we can use every player. And you can see it today on the bench: we miss a little bit of pace to go and change the game, move some pieces.

“But I prefer it like that. I will put [63-year-old goalkeeper coach Jorge] Vital on before I put a player on that don’t give the maximum every day. So I will not change in that department.”

Amorim’s stance on Rashford has been resolute since he dropped the forward from his squad for the derby against Manchester City on Dec. 15. United won 2-1 without Rashford that day, and aside from being an unused substitute in a 3-0 home defeat against Newcastle last month, the forward has been absent from 10 of 11 matchday squads. He was not involved again at Fulham and it was the poor performance of Højlund in particular that exposed United’s lack of cutting edge up front.

All coaches need to find a way to win, and most are pragmatic enough to select players they have issues with in order to get the results they need to keep the fans and owners happy. But Amorim won’t pick Rashford, despite the limitations of his forwards. Aside from winger Amad Diallo, no forward has scored for United since early December.

It generally doesn’t matter who scores as long as a team wins or, at the very least, avoids defeat. But the problem right now for Amorim and United is that the players who are supposed to find the back of the net are showing no signs of doing so.

Højlund, a £64m signing from Atalanta 18 months ago, took his goalless streak to 11 games during a woeful 57 minutes at Craven Cottage in which he had no shots at goal and no touches in the Fulham penalty area. His replacement from the substitutes’ bench, Zirkzee, walked off the pitch after a 33-minute outing having also failed to shoot at goal. The £36m signing from Bologna has now managed one goal in 14 games, although he did help link play better than Højlund did during his time on the pitch.

Højlund is clearly low on confidence and, at just 21 years old, he needs help from more experienced teammates, but when you play as a No. 9 for Manchester United, the expectations are incredibly high and the Denmark international is not meeting them. Neither is Zirkzee.

United do not have the finances to sign a proven upgrade this month, so there will no Viktor Gyökeres or Victor Osimhen arriving at Old Trafford before Monday’s transfer deadline, as much as Amorim’s team need a player of that calibre to bolster the squad.

With three years to run on his £325,000-a-week contract at Old Trafford, Rashford is hardly a bargain opportunity for rival clubs and with three weeks of the window gone, he is still at United having so far failed to secure a move away from the club, despite interest from AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund. Sources have told ESPN that Rashford is hopeful that Barcelona will be able to step up their interest in a loan deal by offloading players to free up room on their wage bill, but there are no guarantees, and he’s just as likely to still be at Old Trafford next Tuesday as he is to be somewhere else.

Rashford hasn’t kicked a ball for United since the Europa League victory away to Viktoria Plzen on Dec. 12, but the onus is now firmly on him to change that. Amorim has made it clear what needs to happen; the clock is ticking.

Rashford can either leave, or do what his coach wants. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about for a player who was once United and England’s golden boy.