Marcus Rashford is training with Manchester United again, at the County Kildare camp, part of a first-team squad for the first time in more than 18 months. He is not there because a plan came together. He is there because two separate escape routes closed and nobody has offered a third.
The first was Barcelona's. The option in last season's loan to make the move permanent, worth about £26m, expired in the middle of June without being triggered, and Barcelona spent more than €90m on Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi instead. The second was a clause in his own contract allowing other clubs, with Liverpool and Manchester City specifically excluded, to buy him for £40m. That expired in July, also untriggered.
The wage is the whole problem
Rashford is contracted at Old Trafford until 2028 on £325,000 a week, which makes him the club's top earner at a moment when the minority owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, is trying to hold down wage costs that are by some distance United's largest expenditure. United remain open to offers and several clubs, some of them Premier League rivals, have made enquiries, but no concrete bid has arrived. Club figures believe he is worth more than the fee Barcelona agreed and accept that nobody else will pay it. His representatives have played down reported interest from the Turkish and Saudi leagues.