Rooney tells Rashford what he must show at Man Utd as he points to body language

Wayne Rooney says what Marcus Rashford needs to do if he wants to stay at Manchester United and be a success.

The signs are looking more and more as though Rashford will now stay at Old Trafford after it looked as though his time at Old Trafford was over.

After a spell at Barcelona last season the Catalan club decided against giving him a permanent move even though it would have been a cut-price deal.

And since returning to Carrington, manager Michael Carrick has spoken positively about what Rashford can bring and that he knows him well.

But Rooney believes that Rashford needs to change his attitude if he is to be accepted back by the fans - saying that he must work hard and play with a smile on his face.

"If he wants to play for Manchester United then the first thing he has to do - I've been there in 2010 when I asked to leave but I stayed - is you have to rebuild, you have to rebuild the relationship with the fans and the easiest way to do that is to work hard and body language," said Rooney.

"You can have a bad game, you can give the ball away, you can make mistakes, but if the fans see you working hard and putting a shift in for the team they will accept that to a certain point."

Rashford made his first preseason performance against Milan last week and Rooney said his body language wasn't good.

"I think Marcus' body language even when he came on wasn't great and it might be something that he needs to work on, to work with someone to make his body language look better," he said.

"His workrate needs to improve, if he wants to be at the football club then he just needs to knuckle down.

"He needs to be more positive, play with a smile on his face, when he gets the ball, I saw it a few times the other day, when he gets the ball and he stands the defender up but knocks it back inside.

"This is what I said to him a couple of years ago 'when you get the ball one v one with the fullback, knock it past him and run, you don't have to do step overs or slow it down'."

Meanwhile, Rashford expressed his desire to focus on playing football without his “name being mentioned every day” in response to Gary Neville attempting to start a discussion about the Manchester United forward.

The 28-year-old replied to a teaser clip for an upcoming episode of the Stick to Football podcast in which Jamie Carragher expressed his frustration when co-host Neville asks for thoughts on Rashford.

Rashford is back at United after spending last season on loan with Barcelona, who he helped win the Spanish league title.

In the clip posted on the Overlap’s X account, Neville holds his hands up and says: “Oh, Marcus Rashford. What do we think?”

It drew an expletive from an exasperated Carragher, who then says: “Can we do a podcast without mentioning Rashford?

“Stop it. Oh my God. It’s like the Trent (Alexander-Arnold) and Rashford…like a little part of the podcast. The Trent part or the Rashford part.”

Rashford replied to the clip in a post on X, saying: “Thanks, Jamie.

“It would be great to be able to get my head down and play football without my name being mentioned every day.”