Rio Ferdinand has revealed the real reason behind Marcus Rashford’s trademark celebration is ‘mentality’ after quizzing the Manchester United forward during a visit to Carrington.
The England star has been in the most prolific form of his career, having notched 24 goals already this season, 17 of those being in the last 18 games since returning from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Rashford has simply pointed to his head with his index finger while standing still to celebrate after all of those goals.
United legend Ferdinand returned to the club’s Carrington training ground this week and on his visit, he found out the real reason behind Rashford’s celebrations, which everyone assumed was due to his issues with mental health.
Ferdinand said on his podcast VIBE with FIVE:
‘Rashford, I found out today, by the way, the celebration, it’s about mentality. Nice, innit. Simple. But it’s just travelled massively. Everyone around the world is doing it now. All the young kids scoring goals, that’s the impact Rashford has had.’
Ferdinand’s comments have dismissed such talk of Rashford’s celebration being purely down to struggling with his mental health last season.
Rashford revealed his struggles back in October, by saying:
‘It’s a completely different energy around the club and the training ground. That puts me in a better headspace and I just feel really motivated now. That’s the area I was struggling in. I was struggling at times with more mental things. It wasn’t really my own performance but other things off the pitch. That’s the biggest difference from last season. Too often last season, I wasn’t in the right headspace for games. I wasn’t surprised by some of the stuff that was happening.’
Rashford will be hoping to put his celebration to use in the next few days as Manchester United face Barcelona in the Europa League and Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final.