Lee Dixon on Marcus Rashford's Potential Move to Arsenal
Lee Dixon would take the deal. No hesitation, no romantic attachment to potential. If it meant Marcus Rashford in an Arsenal shirt and Myles Lewis-Skelly heading the other way, the former Gunners defender is clear: it makes sense for both.
“Would I swap them? You know what, I probably would,” Dixon told BestBettingSites.
It wasn’t a slight on Lewis-Skelly, a highly rated academy product with a sizeable future at the Emirates. For Dixon, it was about opportunity. About giving a young midfielder the space to grow elsewhere, rather than being squeezed in a squad chasing the final steps of a title challenge.
And at the heart of his argument sits one man: Mikel Arteta.
Rashford, Arteta and the promise of a reset
Rashford’s career has always felt emotional. When he’s flying, he lifts a stadium. When he’s struggling, the weight of expectation at Manchester United seems to press down harder than most. Dixon believes Arteta is exactly the type of manager to strip that pressure away and rebuild the forward’s confidence.
“With Marcus Rashford, he's a player who needs an arm around his shoulder, and Arteta would be great for him. Give him that love, give him the freedom to play on that left side, and yeah, I'd like to see him in an Arsenal shirt,” Dixon said.
It’s a compelling image: Rashford, cutting in from the left at the Emirates, operating in the same spaces where Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard have thrived. A player with 138 goals for United, re-energised in a system built on structure and relentless movement.
Dixon didn’t gloss over the doubts. “I have my reservations about whether he's consistently a top-class player,” he admitted, a line that will resonate with anyone who has watched Rashford veer from unstoppable to anonymous over recent seasons. But context matters. “Based on what Arsenal have in the squad now, he'd be a good addition.”
In other words: he may not be Kylian Mbappé, but for a squad that still needs depth, variety and proven end product in the final third, Rashford’s ceiling remains enticing.
A star on pause at Old Trafford
The twist in all this? Rashford hasn’t kicked a competitive ball for United in a long time.
His last appearance came in a Europa League tie against Viktoria Plzen on 12 December 2024, the 426th game of his United career. Just days earlier, he had scored twice against Everton, a brace that nudged him up to 138 goals for the club and briefly hinted at another resurgence.
Then, silence.
Eighteen months have passed without him featuring, a remarkable absence for a player who once looked like the face of United’s future. Out of sight, but never quite out of mind. Around Old Trafford, his name still sits at the centre of every conversation about what this team is and what it could be.
The numbers underline the sense of frustration. To reach 426 appearances and 138 goals by his mid-twenties is no small feat. Those are the stats of a player who should be entering his prime, not one stuck in limbo, debated more in theory than in practice.
Carrick’s dilemma – and United’s wild card
Michael Carrick, now the man tasked with dragging United back to something resembling their old standards, knows what a fully firing Rashford looks like. He has seen the player who can turn games on his own, who can turn a flat atmosphere electric with one burst, one finish.
If Carrick can unlock that version again, United effectively gain a new signing without paying a fee. That’s the tantalising prospect: Rashford as a fresh addition, reborn after a long lay-off, offering goals, pace and a threat from the left that few defenders enjoy facing.
Yet that same scenario is what makes Dixon’s hypothetical swap so intriguing. Arsenal, under Arteta, have become a carefully curated project, built on coaching detail and emotional intelligence. It’s the kind of environment that has taken players like Martin Ødegaard and Granit Xhaka from uncertain futures to central pillars.
Rashford, in that sort of setting, feels like a classic reclamation project. High risk, high reward. A player who might just need that “arm around his shoulder” Dixon talks about to rediscover the edge that once made him one of Europe’s most exciting forwards.
For now, it’s only a thought experiment, a former defender weighing up potential against proven pedigree. But with Rashford’s United story stuck on pause, the real question hangs in the air: will his next chapter be a rebirth at Old Trafford under Carrick, or does his revival lie in a different shade of red entirely?
