The Athletic FC

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayur Akim Malare.

Marcus Rashford has been enjoying his football in Spain,

scoring goals and also creating goals,

as he did in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

So will Rashford be able to actually stay in Barcelona?

All right, in with us today, we have our Barcelona writer, Paul Ballouz. We've also got Andy

Mitton as well. All right, Paul, ahead of Wednesday night, you wrote a piece on The Athletic,

actually, on how Barcelona want to keep Rashford. Just give us a sum up of how his time at

Barcelona has been so far. He's been doing quite well because the numbers are really, really good.

If you look at the end product that he's added into that Basso squad, it's been very good.

Compared to last season, Barcelona had in their players such as Ansufati or Paul Victor as not the

backup options, but yeah. And they weren't up to that parcel level. And Rajford has added the new dimension in that regard. He's had 20 goal contributions this season, which is quite the start. And yeah, people at bars are really happy with what Rajford has added into the team. We have to remember that, of course. He comes off a great week. He scores in the weekend in San Sebastian again Ralph's Ocidad.

And in a game on Wednesday that Barclay against Slavidavidavad.

He was possibly expected to start with La Midea Mal being suspended.

But he came off from the bench and he added another assist.

He had another good impact into the team.

And that's in a way, in a nutshell, that's the reason why Barso wants to keep him. Because when

he plays, he adds things. He might not be the first option. He might not be a starter head of

Rafinia, a starter head of Lamina Mal. But he's added a depth and an end product, as I was saying,

that makes him very appealing for Barcelona just to keep him beyond this summer.

Okay, well Andy, you're a Mancunian living in Barcelona, and, you know, Marcus Rashford seems

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