Youri Tielemans Excited for Reunion with Marcus Rashford at Manchester United

Youri Tielemans is relishing his reunion with Marcus Rashford at Manchester United – and he is convinced the forward can still light up Old Trafford if he is trusted with a fresh start.

Rashford has been brought back into the first-team picture at his boyhood club, returning to senior training this week after 18 turbulent months away on loan and on the fringes under former United manager Ruben Amorim. His long-term future is still uncertain, but for the first time in a while, he is back on the grass in Manchester with a point to prove.

The 26-year-old spent last season at Barcelona, where he did enough to earn regular minutes but not enough to trigger a permanent £26million move. Before that, he dropped into a very different environment, joining Aston Villa for the second half of the 2024-25 campaign at the height of his off-field fallout with Amorim.

That spell in the Midlands brought him back into Tielemans’ orbit. Under fierce scrutiny and with headlines swirling around his behaviour and attitude, Rashford helped Villa charge into the Champions League quarter-finals, where they eventually bowed out to eventual winners PSG. Inside the dressing room, Tielemans saw a very different picture to the one painted outside.

“He was great,” Tielemans said. “There had been so much talk about him and bringing pressure and the media around him, but I thought he was just so good. He was very humble, he was just hard working, and from the first training you could tell his touch, his acceleration was just amazing.

“That was just what we needed at the time at Villa as well, so he did many good things in that time and hopefully he can bring them here.”

Tielemans is not walking into a strange dressing room at Carrington. Rashford is one familiar face; Harry Maguire and first-team coach Jonny Evans are two more, both men he knows well from his time at Leicester City.

“I played with Harry for just a bit less than six months and it was great at the time,” he said. “You could see him and Jonny had a great partnership. Harry was younger at the time and Jonny was guiding him a bit more, but you could see his qualities on the ball.

“Defensively, he is rock solid, so I think he has improved a lot over the years as well. On Jonny, Jonny has always been a main character. He has always been trying to educate young players and he welcomed me at Leicester, and now here.

“It is a bit weird to see him as staff member, to be honest, but no, it is going great. He knows me, he knows what I need and what I can bring to the team, so it helps me as well.”

For Tielemans himself, the move to United feels like a long chase finally completed. The Belgian midfielder has twice held talks over a transfer to Old Trafford in the past, only to see both opportunities fade away before anything concrete was agreed.

“It is a great achievement for any player to end up here,” he said. “There has been two times that I spoke with the club, but it did not achieve to anything.

“When a move comes up, then if it needs to happen, it will happen. At the times that I have been linked with the club before, it did not happen, but it is what it is.”

Now he is in the building, alongside a Rashford he trusts and senior figures he already understands. For United, the question is simple: can this blend of old connections and new beginnings finally turn potential into something far more serious this season?