Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford celebrate against Wolves

Rashford encouraged by Wolves draw

Tuesday 20 August 2019 00:02

Marcus Rashford believes there are plenty of positives to take from Manchester United’s 1-1 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The Reds took the lead through Anthony Martial after 27 minutes but a stunning strike from Ruben Neves in the second half ensured the spoils were shared.

“We still have things to work on, but it was a decent performance,” Rashford admitted to MUTV after the final whistle. “But yeah, [we were] unlucky to come away with a point. It feels like we’ve lost the game.

“I’ve compared it to last time we were here and it’s a million miles off that performance.

“We know that we’ve improved individually and as a team. The result is disheartening but we brush ourselves down and go again.”

Rashford: we deserved win Video

Rashford: we deserved win

The England forward believes we were unfortunate not to take all three points at Wolves...

The Academy graduate netted twice in the 4-0 win over Chelsea last Sunday and turned provider in the West Midlands tonight, threading a delicious through ball for Martial to convert for our opener.

Rashford said the build-up to the goal was something that had been worked on prior to the match and praised the Frenchman, who struck in a red shirt for the 50th time.

“Yeah, [it was a] beautiful goal. It’s something that we spoke about, especially against a team like Wolves that try and defend so narrow.

“There’s spaces as a number nine to the sides of the box. He was making those runs all game, we have to do better to try and find him. That just comes at the tempo we play.

“If we play it a bit quicker through the midfield then into the number 10s or the wingers, we can get him on the ball more and start to make things happen.”

United had the opportunity to win the game when, with 20 minutes to go, Paul Pogba was brought down by Conor Coady in the box, but the Frenchman saw his effort brilliantly saved by Rui Patricio.

Rashford insisted Pogba was right to take the penalty, despite scoring from the spot himself against the Blues in our campaign opener.

“I think if you ask anyone in the team, they’ll feel confident to take the penalty. [Paul] wanted to take it, I took the one last week and it was no problem,” the 21-year-old added.

“But he’s scored countless penalties for us, countless penalties in his career and it's normal for somebody to miss a penalty.

“We don’t need to make a deal of it; if we had another penalty, I’m sure he’d score.”

Rashford embarked on 15 sprints against Wolves, second only to Daniel James. (Opta)

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side have now earned four points from our first two league fixtures – three more than we managed in the corresponding games against Chelsea and Wolves in 2018/19 – but Rashford is adamant that we can still get better on the pitch.

“We see the improvement, we feel it - but 100% we need to show it. That’s the most important part of it.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re improving every day in training if you’re not getting the results you deserve, what does the improvement stand for? It doesn’t stand for anything.

“We know individually and as a team that we have improved. The performance today I think it shows that, but we have to be ruthless in terms of creating and taking the chances.”

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