Rashford can top score for Man Utd from his more suited role out wide

BIRTHDAYS in football are not always an enjoyable experience. When Crystal Palace sacked Trevor Francis in 2003, he sat quietly, according to the club’s then chairman Simon Jordan, and said “but it’s my birthday”.

13 years later Giro D’Italia mountain researcher Francesco Guidolin became the first Premier League manager to be dismissed on his birthday, and, of course, there was the incident with Yaya Toure and the cake. Marcus Rashford’s 22nd birthday, though, came at a fine moment for the Manchester United and England forward, even if 22 is the first generally unheralded age in a footballer’s career (U16, U17, U18, U19, U20 & U21 are all things, even U23 gets a look in).

Twenty two is the start of the serious section of your time in the game, and Rashford enters his 23^rd year [that’s how the year system works, even if you don’t like it] in the best possible way, with a penalty miss recovery performance away at Norwich last weekend and a proper two goal salvo to sink Chelsea in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.

.@MarcusRashford @Cristiano

Bending the laws of physics pic.twitter.com/y9Uve4fyRZ

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) October 31, 2019

Much was made last weekend of Rashford reaching 50 goals for Manchester United earlier in his career than Cristiano Ronaldo, but the mid-2000s was a different era, albeit one when Alex Ferguson was suffering his darkest Premier League period. Ronaldo turned 22 during 2006-07, which you may remember was the season that United shook off the seemingly relentless rise of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and began their run of three titles in a row.

Ronaldo rapidly became the focal attacking point of that team, and you can probably draw a connected line from his rapid improvement to Ferguson’s gamble to move Ruud van Nistelrooy out of the club in the summer of 2006. In contrast, Rashford’s peaks tend to coincide when his most important team-mates are available, rather than shipped off to Real Madrid.

This week’s reboot has coincided with the return of Anthony Martial, and the numbers show that Rashford’s form immediately picks up when the Frenchman is in the team. 23 of his 32 Premier League goals have come in games when he’s featured alongside Martial. There weren’t many high points for Manchester United in 2018-19 but they did see four players (Rashford, Martial, Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku) reach double figures in the Premier League for the first time since Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Andy Cole and Eric Cantona all did it in 1995-96.

And that has generally been the United way in the modern era. The club did not have any players scoring 20+ league goals between Brian McClair in the late 1980s and Dwight Yorke in 2000, yet the 1990s saw five league titles hoovered up. 

Rashford, then, seems to be settling into a classic Manchester United striker role, adept at popping up with big goals in big games (his goal rate of one every 189 minutes against Big Six sides is significantly better than against the rest of the league) but unlikely to plunder at the rate of a Harry Kane. That’s fine, because as the list below shows, most of the United players to score 20+ Premier League goals have done so to the detriment of the team as a whole.

Van Nistelrooy presided over a largely regressive period, Dimitar Berbatov scored 16 of his 20 goals in 2010-11 at home (with five coming against Sam Allardyce’s Blackburn: is that good? No-one knows) and although Robin van Persie was superb as United won their most recent league title in 2012-13, in truth it was one last bank job for both manager and striker before the rot set in.

Rashford, then, has much more to his game than being a pure striker, and shouldn’t be judged as such. For all the comparisons with Ronaldo – and Wednesday’s knuckleball free-kick against Chelsea was as impressive as anything the Portuguese crafted in England – Rashford is almost the opposite. Touted endlessly as a central striker, he seems more effective starting wide, a journey that Ronaldo has made in reverse.

Despite widespread discussion and understanding of tactical approaches in modern football, the idea that a team’s centre-forward should be the main source of goals is one that remains incredibly robust, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. The top-scoring player in Premier League history in a 38-game season is Mohamed Salah, with 32 goals in 2017-18.

He did so on the right of front three and it feels like Rashford cutting in from the left is a key ingredient if United are to re-establish themselves as credible challengers to the top two. Many if not most players would baulk at the prospect of their club going out and strengthening the squad, but for Marcus Rashford it feels like a win/win scenario.

In the short-term, keeping him and Anthony Martial fit in the lead-up to Christmas at least semi-guarantees that United’s fragile recovery of the last fortnight will endure.