The amount of money Barcelona need to sign Marcus Rashford from Manchester United | OneFootball

With six months to go and some work to do in La Liga to get themselves back into the title race, Barcelona have identified the final third as the area they would most like strengthen. Manchester United‘s Marcus Rashford has emerged as their primary target, but as ever with the Catalan giants, the numbers must add up.

Catalan paper Sport say that Barcelona are one of several clubs vying for Rashford’s signature, including Borussia Dortmund, AC Milan and AS Monaco, but are the English forward’s priority. The major obstacles are finance and timing for the Blaugrana. On Wednesday Rashford’s brother was due to hold a meeting with Manchester United to resolve his future, and had set today as a deadline for Barcelona to confirm whether they could do a deal.

Barcelona know that a deal for Rashford would require them to move on another player, and either save or earn €6.5m in order to pay his wages for the next six months. He would arrive on loan with a €40m option to buy, but would then have to reduce his €12m net per year wages if both sides wanted to do a deal.

The prime candidates to be sacrificed are Eric Garcia and Andreas Christensen after Ronald Araujo’s U-turn, or even Ansu Fati, who no longer looks to be in Hansi Flick’s plans. The German coach is reportedly the primary backer of bringing in Rashford, and he would add to a forward line consisting of just Robert Lewandowsk, Pau Victor, Raphinha, Fati and Ferran Torres as natural options through the middle and on the left.