Gary Lineker spots Marcus Rashford priority after Man United transfer bombshell
Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker has expressed his hope that Manchester United star Marcus Rashford is okay after his bombshell interview on Tuesday evening.
Speaking to journalist Henry Winter, Rashford confirmed that he was seeking a new challenge away from Old Trafford. However, his desire was not to burn bridges at Old Trafford when the time came to leave his boyhood club for good.
The interview is all but an admission that Rashford's time at United is coming to an end and has sparked plenty of speculation about where he could end up next. Moves to Saudi Arabia and PSG have both been mooted in the past 24 hours but Ruben Amorim has insisted that he would be happy for the Englishman to stay at the club.
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Discussing Rashford with Sky Sports News, Lineker insisted that the priority now is to check on the forward to see if he is doing okay. "I hope he is okay, first and foremost," the former Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City striker said.
"That is important because we don’t really, all understand the circumstances of footballers sometimes and it’s easy to opine on people and have opinions. Obviously his form has been troubled and he’s not been as special as he can be in the last 18 months or so.
"Whether a parting of ways is inevitable or not, I don’t know. I hope he rallies and performs well because he is a big player and Manchester United is a huge football club.
"Ruben Amorim has said he wants him to battle on and keep going so hopefully that will happen. There comes a time, sometimes, when perhaps a parting of ways is necessary, I don’t know whether it has reached that or not."
When asked if he felt United's recent struggles have contributed to Rashford's interview, Lineker claimed that it may well have done but their fortunes could easily change. "I think United have struggled for some time and I think sometimes we judge the players when things are not going well on the pitch and it makes it more difficult for people to shine," he concluded.
"They are going through a particularly tough spell are United, over the last couple of years, with the exception of winning the FA Cup. It will be interesting to see if they can get a manager who gets them going and then the players' confidence will bounce back.
"We have seen it with Chelsea this season. Last season, you looked at some of the players on the pitch who are now performing really well, who were performing poorly.
"But it just shows how important confidence is and a little bit of momentum. That might happen with the new manager but we will have to wait and see."