Little that Dan Ashworth said or did has aged well at Manchester United but one quote endures.

"I've seen this written before, I'm not saying anything new," he protested in the Old Trafford boardroom in September. "The number of players that will be one-club players there for a long, long period of time, I think it's probably changing within the game and that's an unintended consequence of the rules and regulations."

Marcus Rashford, once seemingly destined to be a one-club man in the mould of Giggs, Scholes or Neville, will be finding a new club soon. It has to be next month.

Rashford could have ploughed on after his derby day omission, trained harder and played a part in a League Cup semi-final on Thursday. But he told Henry Winter, "For me, personally, I think I'm ready for a new challenge and the next steps." That was in direct response to the query whether he was staying or going.

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Winter has interviewed Rashford before. There is an established relationship. He was with him at a primary school. There is nothing ambiguous about Rashford's on-the-record comment.

That settles matters. Ruben Amorim should not consider Rashford for selection ahead of an intended transfer next month. It is in the best interests of all parties that Rashford finds a change of scenery. It has been in his best interests for nearly a year.

Amorim's pre-match press conference is earlier than usual on Wednesday morning at 9am. United plan to let him address the Rashford matter then.

United ought to have had an inkling this was coming. Rashford's PR is handled by the same woman who is still involved with Cristiano Ronaldo. Silence is not always golden with her clients.

Rashford is more sellable now. His valuation has plummeted and a club out there will take an opportunistic punt on a 27-year-old determined to represent England at the 2026 World Cup.

But he has come to the end of the road at United. The club were open to selling Rashford in the summer and their stance has not changed. There was no market for Rashford in the close season but there could be in the New Year. When he agreed a five-year, £325,000-a-week contract with United in July 2023, Rashford was valued at close to £100million. He is worth closer to a quarter of that now.

There have been only 15 club goals in the past 18 months, two public disciplinaries and a Manchester derby squad removal. In March 2022, Rashford was so piqued to be left on the bench at the Etihad with Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani, Anthony Martial and Mason Greenwood all absent it emerged he was considering his future the next day. So Rashford has form for this.

This time he is not bluffing. Three seasons ago, it was a negotiation tactic. As it was when Rashford's brother, Dwaine, darted across the Channel to meet intermediaries on behalf of Paris Saint-Germain in August 2022. Rashford then had a career-best season as his contract ticked towards its final year.

United supporters sussed him out as early as the fifth game of last season against Brighton. They were quick to voice their thoughts about Rashford's infamous body language and it is worse than friction now. Rashford was booed by many of the 640 hardcore supporters in the away section in freezing Plzen last week.

Whether Rashford heard the jeers or not is unknown. But we did see him fail to acknowledge Amorim and then Amorim acknowledge all four other substitutes who made way.

On Sunday, Amorim questioned Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho's "performance in training, the performance in game, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with teammates, the way you push your teammates". It is not a stretch to imagine Rashford disengaged as some of us journalists have encountered it before.

He will hear his name in a mixed zone and breeze past without politely declining. That behaviour is not exclusive to Rashford and there are worse tales from the mixed zone.

But a player possesses an inflated air of entitlement to turn up for an interview and leave their sports car's engine running for more than half-an-hour. Rashford did that as a few of us waited to interview him in the Jimmy Murphy Centre at Carrington nearly two years ago.

He was actually an engaging interviewee. United staff attempted to make light of the pollution outside but the club have been treading on eggshells with Rashford for several months. They went out of their way to contextualise his bench role for the away defeat at Chelsea in April when he had clearly been dropped.

United were sensitive about stories towards the end of last season detailing Rashford's for-sale status. As a Wythenshawe-born boyhood Red who captured the imagination so captivatingly as an 18-year-old in February 2016, some were clinging on to false hope.

The truth is Rashford has changed. There was that clip of him tossing his gloves to the turf before he came on against Bodo/Glimt, rather than handing them over to the nearby member of staff. Amorim was stood nearby and does not miss a trick.

When Rashford's warm-up was interrupted against Midtjylland that night in February 2016 and he was informed of his promotion from substitute to starter, he sprinted towards the tunnel for instructions. Now he is regularly accused of not sprinting.

A couple of colleagues were bemused when they were interviewing Rashford in San Diego that he suddenly started tying his shoelace and then, mid-question, walked away. The United press officer was caught off guard.

His own mother, Melanie, questioned the company Rashford keeps in a piece for The Times earlier this year. There was an over-reaction to his November jaunt to New York (chiefly by Gary Neville) and Rashford scored three goals in his first two starts under Amorim.

He was unhappy to be dropped for the 2-0 defeat at Arsenal and to be on the bench again three days later for the home loss to Nottingham Forest. Upon his recall in the Czech Republic, he lasted 56 minutes and was the first to be hooked.

Rashford was at Button Lane Primary School on Tuesday. He put Wythenshawe and Fletcher Moss, his junior team, on the map. There is nothing to celebrate when United cash in on a hitherto one-club man. But they have to.