Manchester United have been warned they will have to sell struggling star Marcus Rashford "on the cheap" if they decide to move him on from Old Trafford.
The attacker has struggled badly this season amid what has been a disastrous campaign for the Red Devils. Rashford has scored just five goals in 26 appearances in all competitions and has lost his regular starting spot under Ralf Rangnick.
His poor form has also seen him lose his place in Gareth Southgate's England squad, with the 24-year-old also being snubbed when several players pulled out with injury. That has led to rumours that Rashford could leave his boyhood club this summer in the hope of rediscovering the form of his early career.
But while the Red Devils hold an option to extend his contract until 2024, former United star Paul Parker does not believe the Premier League giants will be able to bring in a large fee. Instead, Parker believes that his dreadful season has caused his price tag to be slashed.
“Marcus Rashford, if he is going to be sold, he’ll have to be sold cheap. You can’t put a price tag on him at this moment in time because he just hasn’t been anywhere near. People will say, well we’ll take him on, we don’t know what we’re getting so why pay a lot of money," he told OddsNinja.
“What’s gonna happen, if he gets to the end of the season and the new manager comes in, he’s gonna have to talk to him about what he really wants to do. At the end of the day, if he’s not a Manchester United player, he’s not really good for anyone else. They’re not interested in him, PR wise, to be perfectly honest.
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“I look at the end of the day, he’s having a poor, poor time. If you look at his football, he should have been like an England regular now, the way he started. And now he can’t get in the squad and rightly so because he hasn’t been playing well enough to be playing in the England squad."
Among the clubs to be linked with a move for Rashford have been Liverpool and Barcelona. But Parker has shot down any suggestion that either of those two sides will actually make a bid for him amid his dreadful form.
“I really don’t buy the Liverpool one. I don’t think anyone with any inkling of common sense is gonna believe Liverpool [rumours]. When you look at the players and look at the ones they’ve gone and brought in recent seasons, just take two of them [Diogo] Jota and (Luis) Diaz," Parker added.
"Both of them joined Liverpool and hit the ground running. I don’t think Liverpool, PR wise, are going to take a player who’s playing very very poorly for Manchester United and then introduce him to their squad. I’m writing that one off.
“FC Barcelona is an easy one to throw up but Barcelona very rarely takes English players. Newcastle again, are very easy to throw up, because allegedly they’ve got a lot of money. I think it’s an agent who is throwing that around and he can’t be the best if he’s throwing him around because people are gonna maybe say what I’m saying.”
