Youri Tielemans Embraces New Life at Manchester United with Marcus Rashford
Youri Tielemans is relishing his new life at Manchester United – and the chance to link up again with Marcus Rashford, a player he is convinced can still change games at Old Trafford if he is trusted to do so.
Rashford has re-emerged at his boyhood club this week, back in first-team training after 18 turbulent months away. Frozen out by former United manager Ruben Amorim and sent on a series of loans, the academy graduate’s long-term future in Manchester remains uncertain. Barcelona passed on the option to make his move permanent at £26million after last season, leaving the forward at a crossroads.
Before that stint in Spain, Rashford and Tielemans shared a dressing room at Aston Villa in the second half of the 2024-25 campaign. Rashford arrived in the Midlands at the height of the storm around his fallout with Amorim, his off-field issues drawing as many headlines as anything he did on the pitch.
The noise was deafening. Rashford answered it with performances.
He helped Villa surge to the Champions League quarter-finals, where they eventually fell to eventual winners PSG, and Tielemans says the impact his team-mate made under that glare left a mark.
“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.”
For Tielemans, the Rashford he knows is not the caricature that has followed the England international over the past two years, but the sharp, driven forward who lit up training sessions and big European nights. United now have that version back in their building. Whether he is given the platform to thrive is the looming question.
Familiar Faces, New Setting
Rashford is not the only reminder of past chapters in Tielemans’ career. The Belgian midfielder also finds himself reunited with Harry Maguire and first-team coach Jonny Evans, with whom he shared a dressing room 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.”
Evans, once the experienced head alongside Maguire at the heart of Leicester’s defence, is now tasked with shaping United’s next generation from the touchline. For Tielemans, that continuity of voice and understanding inside a new dressing room offers a smoother landing at a club where expectations rarely dip.
Third Time Lucky at Old Trafford
Tielemans’ move to United this summer carries its own sense of destiny. This is not a transfer that came out of nowhere; it is the culmination of a pursuit that stalled twice before finally catching fire.
“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, the equation is simple: perform, and stay. That applies to Tielemans, but it hangs even heavier over Rashford, who returns from Barcelona and Villa with his reputation both questioned and quietly rebuilt.
Tielemans has seen up close what Rashford can do when the noise fades and the ball arrives at his feet. United’s season may hinge on whether the club – and its new structure – are willing to trust that version again.
