How much should Manchester United expect from Marcus Rashford?
The question has become relevant after a difficult start to the season for United and an indifferent one for Rashford.
The 25-year-old was named the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year for 2022-23 before signing a new five-year contract, which propelled him into the bracket of United’s highest-earning players.
Yet he has scored just once in his first seven games (the opener in the 3-1 defeat to Arsenal earlier this month). It is a far cry from the beginning of the year, when he got 16 goals in 17 appearances after the post-World Cup resumption and was widely regarded as the form player in European football.
So, what has changed?
Under the hood, not a lot.
Rashford ended arguably the finest individual season of his career with a non-penalty expected goals (xG) tally of 0.48 per 90 minutes and, despite him suffering an apparently barren spell, his xG in this one stands at 0.42 — a drop-off, but only a slight one, and still enough for him to lead the way among United’s squad.
A return of one goal from a total of 2.5 xG this season indicates wayward finishing rather than failing to get on the end of chances. Across Rashford’s career, his goal and xG numbers have largely been in line, so it seems likely this underperformance is just a blip.
His 4.4 shots per 90 minutes in his six Premier League outings is the highest rate in United’s squad and among the best in the top flight — Rashford is shooting more this season than at any point in a top-flight career that began in 2016.
That said, those numbers are skewed by the small sample size and by an extraordinarily trigger-happy display against Brighton & Hove Albion, a defeat that put Rashford’s recent form under the microscope. His nine shots that day were the most in the Premier League by a United player who didn’t score with at least one of them in seven years.
It was also the performance where Rashford’s apparent reluctance to pass to new strike partner Rasmus Hojlund became a talking point. A similar incident occurred against Burnley last weekend, when he elected to go for goal himself despite the crowd of defenders ahead of him and the option to square the ball to an unmarked Casemiro.
Some of the screengrabs shared on social media have done Rashford a disservice, though.
Early on against Brighton, he barged through their defence towards the byline while Hojlund hit the six-yard box, but when Rashford checked back the path was no longer clear and the Dane was potentially offside. It made sense to shoot rather than pass.
On other occasions, Rashford could have made a different choice. At the start of the second half, there came another chance to set Hojlund up for a tap-in. A heavy touch on the edge of the box did not help and some camera angles suggest the gap was small, but any shot in this situation is likely to end up in the side netting.
This is not some new selfish streak. There has been next to no change in the frequency with which Rashford plays in team-mates — his 24 passes per 90 minutes this season is only a shade lower than the 25 he was averaging last term.
Rashford’s decision-making has occasionally left something to be desired, though. As his shotmap above illustrates, many of his attempts at goal have come from sub-optimal positions on the edge of the penalty area, and of his 26 shots in the Premier League this season, 15 have been blocked.
His partnership with Hojlund is in its infancy. Criticism of one for failing to find the other after 60 minutes of their first start together felt premature and typical of the frenzied reaction to any United result, let alone a defeat.
For all the sound and fury that followed that home loss to Brighton, Rashford laid the ball off to Hojlund to open his account in United’s very next game. There was also the early left-wing cross against Brighton that Hojlund was inches away from converting on the stretch.
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Erik ten Hag believes this understanding with Hojlund will take time. “They have to know each other and that process just started,” the United manager said.
“We have seen Rasmus and Rashy together, they are talking about how they can benefit from each other. You can see that discussion and interaction is going on on the pitch, you can see that connection is there and they will get the routines in.”
Rashford drew criticism after defeat to Brighton (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
There has also been scrutiny of what is perceived as Rashford’s unwillingness to track back or press.
He is not a particularly active presser. Last season, his average of 19 pressures per 90 minutes was solid but unspectacular among his peers — fewer than Bruno Fernandes, Fred and Jadon Sancho, a touch more than Antony and dead in line with Cristiano Ronaldo.
This season, Rashford only ranks behind Fernandes in pressures per 90 among United players with at least two matches’ worth of Premier League minutes, but others who have come in and out of the side have chased down opponents with greater intensity.
Take Hojlund, whose 114 pressures is not far off Rashford’s total of 123 despite the latter having played three times as many minutes. Alejandro Garnacho’s 24.8 pressures per 90 minutes this season is more than Rashford’s 20.8. In midfield, Hannibal Mejbri has brought energy to United’s press too.
Manchester United’s pressing leaders
| Mins Played| Pressures p90
—|—|—
Rasmus Hojlund
177
58.0
Hannibal Mejbri
116
47.3
Bruno Fernandes
540
34.0
Anthony Martial
158
29.1
Mason Mount
153
25.3
Alejandro Garnacho
145
24.8
Marcus Rashford
533
20.8
Christian Eriksen
316
19.1
Sergio Reguilon
164
18.7
Antony
312
17.6
Is Rashford doing enough out of possession? Again, it was the Brighton defeat which brought that question to the fore, but there were mitigating factors that afternoon, particularly United’s change to a diamond midfield, which required a new structure out of possession.
With Scott McTominay and Christian Eriksen stretched due to the lack of width in the new shape, Rashford was tasked with not only pressing Brighton’s right centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke but also positioning himself to prevent the pass from him into midfield.
In this early passage of play, Rashford can be seen blocking goalkeeper Jason Steele’s path to Pascal Gross while also readying himself to press Van Hecke should he be the one to receive the ball. Move too close to Van Hecke, or press too early, and the lane opens up to Gross.
This example illustrates why measuring a player’s effectiveness at pressing by how many times they attempt to close an opponent down can be too simplistic. Pressing is not simply chasing whoever has the ball at every opportunity. It is about knowing when to press so as not to allow exploitable gaps.
That is not necessarily a defence of Rashford, though. Like several United players, he struggled out of possession in the Brighton game, particularly once visiting manager Roberto De Zerbi pushed his centre-halves wider.
Here, with United trailing 1-0, Rashford looks to press Gross but cannot prevent a simple pass back to Steele.
The goalkeeper finds Van Hecke, who is already wide of the play to receive in space.
Rashford cannot make up the ground to get close to Van Hecke before the ball is back with Gross.
Brighton are considered one of the most press-resistant sides in the Premier League, and perhaps across Europe, so it is not especially surprising that Rashford’s limitations out of possession were more pronounced that day.
But pressing is not his primary role. He is most important to United when they have the ball, when he is supposed to offer the constant counter-attacking threat that Ten Hag wants as he attempts to build “the best transition team in the world”.
Rashford’s out-of-possession responsibilities have to be balanced with the physical demands of repeatedly running off the shoulder of the last man to offer a threat in behind.
It is not as though Rashford is an unwilling runner. His figure of 650 sprints during the 2022-23 Premier League was the most of any United player, comfortably ahead of Fernandes’ 589, and only seven players in the division made more sprints than Rashford last season.
When you have that threat on the break, it makes sense to use it.
Rashford is receiving 8.14 progressive passes (defined as a pass that moves the ball 10 yards closer to goal or into the penalty area) per 90 minutes. Of those to play regularly under Ten Hag, only Antony was being used as an outlet more often.
Rashford carries much of United’s counter-attacking responsibility (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
United look for Rashford with such regularity and he is shooting so often that, sooner or later, the goals will follow, his limitations in the press will be largely forgotten, and he will be said to have regained form.
Last year’s post-World Cup spell was arguably the best he has played, but not entirely unprecedented. Rashford scored 16 times in 20 games midway through Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first full season, 2019-20, metaphorically carrying a mediocre United side on his back until it literally gave way to a stress fracture that January.
Once he returned, he hit seven in eight games at the start of the 2020-21 campaign and another seven in 11 midway through it. Even in his annus horribilis of 2021-22, three of his five goals came in his first four appearances and the other two came in consecutive games.
Rashford has been here before. He will be here again.
When these spells come around, it is usually not long before he reminds everyone of his importance.
That is what his United career has taught us to expect.
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Manchester United’s player of the season: Marcus Rashford
(Top photo: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
