Marcus Rashford holds the key to Man United’s success against Valencia
Manchester United were at the receiving end of a lot of criticism after three consecutive draws against Crystal Palace, Southampton and Arsenal but the Red Devils bagged their first win after the international break with a 4-1 demolition of Fulham on Saturday.
Jose Mourinho has had a lot of injuries to contend with in all departments of the game after the international break, missing the likes of Anthony Martial, Chris Smalling, Paul Pogba and Luke Shaw due to intermittent injuries.
However, Mourinho has every reason to be pleased with his team’s performances against Southampton and Arsenal. United were expected to have a tough time facing an Arsenal outfit that was unbeaten in 19 games but the Red Devils responded well and managed to get a fair share of the spoils, coming from behind twice to hold Arsenal to a 2-2 draw.
As far as the Champions League is concerned, United have had a mixed time so far. An impressive 3-0 drubbing of Young Boys on the opening day was followed by a rather stale 0-0 draw against Valencia at home. Given their lacklustre start to the Premier League season, United were expected to be up against it when they faced Juventus in the double-header.
Although United went down 1-0 against the Serie A champions at Old Trafford, they showed plenty of character to come back from behind at Turin, registering a 2-1 victory away from home to shock the home side.
As topsy-turvy as things have been for United this season, they put in a very lacklustre performance against Young Boys at Old Trafford and Marouane Fellaini saved them the blushes with an injury-time winner.
United have already progressed to the knockout rounds and the game against Valencia is nothing but a dead-rubber. With United set to lock horns with Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday, one can expect Mourinho to rotate his squad and field some of the out of favour stars on Wednesday in Spain.
However, it will be important for the Red Devils to go into Saturday’s game high on confidence with a positive result against Valencia.
And Marcus Rashford, who has been in tremendous form in the recent weeks, should be the key to their success once again. After an industrious and impressive display against Arsenal in the mid-week game, Rashford absolutely tore Fulham to pieces with his powerful runs down the left. The youngster set up Juan Mata with a wonderful cut-back into the box and scored with a powerful drive in the second half to cap off a dominant display by Manchester United.
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He has always been a lively presence down the flanks; creating space, cutting inside and feeding the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Anthony Martial from the wide areas. He has got all the pace and the guile in the world to leave the full-backs for dead and United will need him to be at the top of his game to propel them to a victory on Wednesday.
