Rashford encouraged by United's fighting spirit

The Academy graduate scored his 11th and 12th United goals of the season at Bramall Lane on Thursday evening, as we ran out 3-2 winners in South Yorkshire.

First, he expertly controlled a precise long ball from Victor Lindelof before smashing home our equaliser with a powerful half-volley. Then, after the interval, the 23-year-old slotted in our crucial third goal, following some quick counter-attacking football in classic United fashion.

Speaking to Amazon Prime after the win, our no. 10 said he was pleased with the team's fighting spirit, after we overcame conceding another early goal and saw out a nervy last few minutes.

“It’s football, it gets like that,” he said about the final stages.

“Once again, we go on to respond, going 1-0 behind, scoring three goals and then, of course, late on, if we don’t kill the game off, it’s going to be tough at a place like this. So, today we didn’t get anything that we didn’t expect. They fought for every ball, they wanted to win the game and they fought for 90 minutes and, you know, in the end we managed to get the three points.”

Of the 23 points Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side has gained this season, 18 of those have come from behind – that is eight more than Liverpool and over twice as many as any other Premier League side.

Rashford started on the left in a typical 4-2-3-1 formation with Anthony Martial up front, Bruno Fernandes in the playmaker role and with Mason Greenwood cutting in from the right. This was only the second time the four had started together in the league this season, having been a regular attacking quartet towards the end of last season. 

“We have the potential to rotate a lot going forward and that type of free-flowing football is what we enjoy to play the most, so we have to do as well as we can with the team that the manager picks, and our job as players, and today we got it right,” our goalscorer said.

The attacker also emphasised his appreciation for referee Michael Oliver’s action ahead of our important third and final goal of the evening.

“Yeah, he played advantage, and in the end that’s probably why we get the goal, because it’s a foul earlier on in the play. But from there it’s about reaction, runs and passes and when we play one-touch like that we can do that against every team.”

The win at Bramall Lane was our sixth away win in the Premier League this season and our 10th in a row in the competition. Now, Rashford is urging the team to find the same form at Old Trafford.

“It sounds simple but the difficulty is doing it. That’s something that we have to put right, do better at: be better at home and pick up more points, and as players we just try to take one game at the time and just keep trying to win games, which is what United do.”

We have now climbed to sixth in the table and have a game in hand on the teams above us.

“Like I said before, we take one game at a time. It’s early on, it’s a lot of football to be played. It’s going to be lots of ups and downs for everyone so we have to try and find consistency like we’ve found away from home. We need to find that at home, and then we’ll see where we're at later on in the season,” Rashford concluded.