Marcus Rashford has returned to Manchester United without a goal, without an assist, and without much fanfare — and it turns out there's a reason the reunion has felt so flat.
According to Sky News, Rashford has been nursing a hip injury since the World Cup. He receives daily treatment on it. The injury was serious enough to force him out of the autumn internationals, after which he managed exactly one minute of Premier League football. Michael Carrick didn't even get him off the bench during United's toothless defeat at Elland Road.
"He had the slight injury where he had to pull out of England, and we've managed that a little bit," Carrick admitted. That's as close to a straight answer as anyone's getting right now.
The numbers aren't as bad as they look
Strip away the zero beside his name in the goal column and Rashford's underlying output is more interesting. Seventeen shots across all competitions. An xG of 1.92. In a normal run of form, that converts to two goals. Only three Premier League players have fired more shots this season without scoring.
He's also still one of the division's most effective ball carriers in transition — a direct runner who gets into the right areas. The problem is that between an injury limiting his sharpness, a team creating almost nothing, and a goalkeeper or two pulling off saves they had no right to make, nothing is going in.
For context on how broken United's attack is right now: Bryan Mbeumo is the only United player to score in more than one Premier League match this season. Bruno Fernandes, who created 136 chances last term — 89 more than anyone else at the club — has managed just three more than Rashford himself in 2025-26. Since a hat-trick against newly promoted Ipswich, Fernandes's only meaningful contribution came against a Sabah FK side coached by a former Manchester United Soccer Schools coach.
Rashford is a symptom, not the source
That's the honest read here. A player whose entire game runs on pace, power, and confidence — physically compromised, playing behind a misfiring creative engine, in a team that has won once since his return. The conditions couldn't be much worse for a second-spell revival.
His underlying numbers at Barcelona last season were demonstrably better. Some of that gap is the team around him. Some of it is the injury. Punting on Rashford's anytime scorer markets right now means betting on all of that resolving at once — the hip settles, Fernandes clicks back into form, and the luck turns.
Rashford's own track record at least suggests he doesn't stay down. "Every single time I've been down, physically or mentally, I always feel like that's when I turn it around and play my best football."
He's had plenty of practice at it. Whether this United side gives him enough to work with is a different question entirely.
