Greenwood, Rashford and James.

Revealed: United's fastest player in 2020/21

Thursday 10 June 2021 09:30

One of the chief attributes of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Manchester United side has been blistering pace going forward, defined by a group of young, quick attackers.

Many of our goals in the 2020/21 campaign came from fast breaks into opposition territory and it'd be hard to decide who United's quickest player is just by watching games with the naked eye.

However, carefully collated data from Opta can show us exactly who it was in the 2020/21 season.

Some would predict it to be Daniel James, who can often be seen charging down the wing at breakneck speeds, leaving defenders in his wake. Yet, although the Wales international is one of eight different players to top the list for a specific game, one of his team-mates dominates the overall chart.

Marcus Rashford clocked the four fastest times in the Opta stats - coincidentally in the two games against Chelsea and two matches with Leeds United.

His highest figure was 36.26 km/h in the 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge at the end of February.

Mason Greenwood was his closest challenger, taking fourth spot after a sprint of 35.04 km/h in the home clash with Arsenal last year.

The other United players who Opta timed with the quickest speed in an individual Premier League match were Tim Fosu-Mensah, Eric Bailly, Luke Shaw, Brandon Williams, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Anthony Elanga.

Wan-Bissaka actually came out on top on five occasions but Rashford ruled supreme as he was the top man in 23 of the games!

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