At this point, it would probably be a bigger surprise if Marcus Rashford was reinstated into the Manchester United squad than if his current exclusion lasted for another game and possibly longer.

His team is fighting for points and is four places above the Premier League relegation zone. Should they lose to Newcastle United at Old Trafford on Monday, it would be six defeats in December and the first time they have lost four in a row since 1961.

However, who can predict with confidence that Ruben Amorim will bring Rashford back to a team that has scored fewer goals this season than 18th-placed Leicester City?

That seems unlikely considering Amorim’s recent selection has made it clear he doesn’t like what he sees or hears when it comes to one of the club’s highest-paid players. Rashford has not featured in the last four squads and when a player is left out in this way, history is a lesson in how history rarely has a happy ending.

Roberto Mancini reconciled (or at least was willing to tolerate him) with Carlos Tevez after their relationship at Manchester City apparently fell apart. Pep Guardiola did the same with Yaya Toure and in both cases it ended with the players coming in from the cold to help City win the league.

Tevez was even able to play down the fact that he had spent four months in exile because the row began when Mancini accused him of not coming off the bench in a Champions League game against Bayern Munich.

The Argentine disappeared to Buenos Aires most of the time and was photographed on a golf course, leading to questions about whether his golf handicap was more important to him than playing for his club. When he scored a hat-trick in one of his comeback games, a 6-1 win at Norwich City, he celebrated with a golf swing.

Perhaps in some ways it is an unfair comparison, considering that Tevez’s dispute with City involved lawyers, some ugly public outbursts and open hostility, rather than the same issues that led to Rashford’s removal from Amorim’s team – in short, his attitude and his lifestyle. and the growing suspicion that a player with 60 England caps has severely blurred his priorities.

The point here, however, is that it may be difficult to recall many occasions where something similar has happened to one of the Premier League’s top players and that player’s relationship with his manager has remained intact.

One might assume that, in theory, it shouldn’t be too difficult for a manager and a player to talk about and agree that they can still be good for each other despite their differences. However, in practice this rarely happens.

What does Rashford think of United’s manager leaving him out of the squad for the games against Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Bournemouth and Wolves? Is he angry? Does he feel unfairly excluded? Or does he accept, deep down, that he has been jeopardizing his happiness for some time and, if he is truly honest, that he has brought these problems on himself?

All that can really be said for sure is that Rashford appears to be interested in leaving Old Trafford for another club, and we know this because he and his PR squad have made sure this gets known . It is also not the first time in recent years that he has seriously considered leaving.

United, in turn, would be willing to sell him considering that at 27, Rashford is no longer the player everyone expected and wanted at Old Trafford.

But a transfer is never going to be easy due to the numbers involved, and unfortunately for Rashford, potential buyers might have a few concerns if the player in question earns more than £325,000 ($413,000) a week, and that also been out of shape for longer than he probably cares to remember.

So the other option is for manager and players to come to an understanding and agree to put the last few weeks behind them. And of course that’s not easy either, considering that even when the relationship with Paul Pogba was at its most strained, Jose Mourinho never left him out of the entire squad for a single game, let alone four in a row.

Harry Maguire has shown it is possible to return to United’s starting XI after being frozen out, dropped as captain and made available for transfer during Erik ten Hag’s time as manager.

These were different circumstances, however, as Maguire’s absence had been for footballing reasons and not, as with Rashford, what was happening off and on the pitch.

United fans may point out that the relationship between Sir Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney continued beyond the point when the player handed in a transfer request in 2010 and contemplated what would have been a treacherous move to Manchester City.

The better comparison is perhaps what happened in the final weeks of Ferguson’s reign, towards the end of the 2012/13 season, when Rooney was removed from the team because the manager didn’t like the way he was living his life . The two men could barely make eye contact as they lined up to shake hands after Ferguson’s farewell game at Old Trafford and the presentation of the Premier League trophy.

The story at the time was that Ferguson had told his successor David Moyes that he had announced Rooney’s departure as a parting gift. Chelsea wanted to sign the English striker. But Moyes had other ideas – as did Ed Woodward in his first summer as United manager – and sorted things out in a frank discussion with Rooney.

“Do you still think you’re a top player?” asked Moyes. Rooney replied: “Yes, of course he did.” “So if you’re a top player, why are Chelsea only offering £25 million for you?” Moyes wanted to know. Rooney gave it his all and was United’s best player for the first half of the following season.

Perhaps Rashford could benefit from this kind of tête-à-tête, and if it has the same effect, perhaps it would help Amorim too. Let’s not forget that this is a player who is 15th on United’s all-time goalscoring list with 138 goals, ahead of Andy Cole, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Eric Cantona and several others who are considered United royalty.

However, looking back over the years, it is clear that banishing a high-profile player is usually a manager signaling to the top players that it is time to free them.

You may remember that Mikel Arteta did something similar with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to mark his departure from Arsenal at a time when many fans viewed him as their best striker.

Guardiola did the same with Joao Cancelo because there were problems behind the scenes at City. In the end, Mancini gave up on Mario Balotelli and like Rooney, sometimes the coach has to go for a player to stay.

Every Newcastle fan of a certain generation remembers Ruud Gullit’s infamous time as manager and the mutiny that was sparked by his dropping Alan Shearer, the local hero, over a derby defeat to Sunderland at the start of the 1999/2000 season .

However, the more relevant example is Rob Lee, who was considered a Shearer ally, was excluded from Gullit’s team and forced to train with the reserves. Lee, an England international, wasn’t even given a squad number. But it was Gullit who lost the civil war and ultimately resigned. Lee was brought back into the team by Bobby Robson and was later given a testimonial season to recognize his contributions to the club.

And Rashford? Perhaps the saddest thing is that there was a time when it was easy to imagine that he, a former academy player who has been at the club since he was seven, would one day get his own recommendation.

Maybe that can still be the case. At the moment it just seems unlikely, and if he is left out again we can probably conclude that Amorim is unwilling to make exceptions just because a player has been linked to the club for a long time.

(Top photo: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)