Monday 30 May 2016 13:47, UK
He's the most talked about young player in English football, but just how good is Marcus Rashford? Adam Bate spoke to his former coaches at Fletcher Moss Rangers, Manchester United and England to find out…
This is a climate in which Chelsea teenagers can seek £50,000 per week contracts before their first-team debut; where youngsters are trailed as 'wonderkids' while YouTube remains their only witness. And yet, even against that backdrop, the emergence of Marcus Rashford at Manchester United retains its capacity to surprise.
Few had heard of the 18-year-old forward until Anthony Martial went down with an injury during the warm-up for the second leg of United's Europa League last-16 tie with FC Midtyjlland at Old Trafford in late February. Rashford was thrust into the limelight and promptly scored two goals as United turned the tie around.
"He seems to have come from nowhere," former United forward Teddy Sheringham told Sky Sports. By the weekend, he'd added another brace in a 3-2 win over Arsenal with veteran talent spotter Arsene Wenger describing Rashford as a "player who was surprising for me talent-wise". That theme of surprise has been a recurring one ever since.
Three months on and Rashford has eight senior Manchester United goals to his name, an FA Cup winners' medal and a debut goal for England. But even after his England call-up, Under-21 boss Gareth Southgate still felt moved to describe Rashford's ascent to the top as "very random".
However, an extraordinary journey should not be mistaken for a fluke. When Louis van Gaal named Rashford among his substitutes for a Premier League game against Watford in December of last year, he described the player as a "fantastic talent" and behind the scenes there has long been an awareness of his vast potential.
Steve Round was the assistant manager to David Moyes during United's 2013/14 season and recalls the debrief about the club's most promising young talents. "I remember talking to one of the academy coaches and asking who they felt, over the course of the next five years, could come through and press for the first team," Round tells Sky Sports.
"They mentioned Jesse Lingard and Adnan Januzaj strongly. And there was talk of a young centre-forward called Rashford who they felt had the potential to maybe go on and be very good - but he was a bit raw and wasn't quite ready. They liked the look of him because he had speed, got goals and was a local guy who had a hunger for the club."
Hunger. That's something that registers with Dave Horrocks. He's the development officer at Fletcher Moss Rangers, the club at which Rashford played for as a boy before embarking upon his United adventure. Horrocks admits to crying when Rashford scored those debut goals and takes particular pride in the young man's attitude.
"The kids who come to us have a bit more about them and are a bit hungrier to want to win," Horrocks tells Sky Sports. "It reflects well on his mother. His father wasn't around but it reflects well on his stable family life, especially coming from the area he started at. He was living in the middle of Withington when he was first knocking about as a five-year-old.
"He was taken places, he wasn't sent. He wasn't given a couple of quid in his hand and packed off. Whether it was his brothers or his mother, they spent time with him and that's got to be key for a child's development. Don't stick them out into the garden with a ball - play with them."
Rashford was nurtured at home and nurtured at his club. But in a year of fairy-tales, maybe this particular Cinderella story was not as unlikely as the immediate headlines might have made out. For instance, Rashford was selected in the Victory Shield squad for England's Under-16s while aged just 14. He was well known to both club and country.
In fact, he was protected. With United keen to keep his development under the radar, his international involvement was restricted. Kenny Swain was England's Under-16 coach at the time and stresses that United were well aware of Rashford's special talent.
"I've got news for you," Swain tells Sky Sports. "We identified him at 14. I remember him as a great talent. That year group for England won the European Championship at Under-17 so he was in good company. He was a very talented footballer with lots of potential for the future, but he was always going to be a slow burner.
"I was always in accord with Manchester United over Marcus so he didn't play maybe as much as I'd have liked. He probably would've played a bit more for me at 16 and he would have had more exposure had Manchester United been prepared to release him a little more often. The staff I was dealing with were very careful with his progress.
"They were very careful with how they managed him, particularly physically. They didn't want to expose him to too much and you do give them some slack when they ask for it. He was still growing and so he was miles behind the others in some ways. But that doesn't take away from the enormous talent we saw in the boy."
Pictures of Rashford at this time highlight the issue. Smaller than his peers, Manchester City's interest was curtailed due to concerns over his size and they weren't the only ones worried. "There were always question marks at the FA at the size of him," adds Swain. "'Why are we wasting time on him? But providing he grew as Manchester United expected, he had this enormous ability."
The anticipated development came in 2014, with United's then academy coach Paul McGuiness highlighting the "big strides" that Rashford made physically that year. McGuiness pointed to a game against Newcastle in which it became apparent that "he didn't realise what this football was about" before "mentally turning a corner" later on.
"One we saw starting to emerge as he grew into his body more was Marcus Rashford," said McGuinness. "He put some exciting parts of games together and we saw some exciting things. He's emerging and starting to do more." A stunning 25-yard free-kick at Tottenham in an FA Youth Cup tie in February 2015 was testament to his growing confidence.
They key was patience. "I think sometimes as a young player you've got to wait until you're physically mature enough to get the opportunity," says Round. "Then when you get the opportunity you take it. And he's done exactly that." Swain agrees: "He maybe wasn't able to keep up with others at the same age.
"There are factors and influences now that can give you some guidance as to where they're going to finish up and when they're going to finish their growth spurt but you can't really predict it. It's just a case of being patient. If you look at him now, he's got a tall frame but in terms of muscular definition he's still got loads more to come."
Even so, by the end of 2015, the patience and hard work had begun to pay off. Having moved into the central striking role ahead of the injured Demetri Mitchell, one who'd been ahead of him in England's European Under-17 Championship winning group, Rashford did a lot of work with United's coach Colin Little on his finishing. It soon reaped rewards.
"He's starting to understand that part of his game and needs to now get a real goal addiction," said McGuiness in December. "He can score unbelievable goals, dribbling past three defenders, but he needs to be more like Ruud van Nistelrooy [and score] real goalscorer's goals. But Marcus is working hard at it."
They were precisely the sort of goals that Rashford was able to score for the first team in 1-0 wins over Manchester City and Aston Villa in the months that followed. Allied to his natural gifts - Rashford was clocked as the fastest man on the pitch in both of those games - and his positive attitude, it proved an alluring combination for Van Gaal.
He's very focused on his work and that I admire when you are so young.
Indeed, the player's willingness to listen was perhaps Rashford's most endearing quality as far as the Dutchman was concerned. Horrocks used to tell him that listening is the best learning tool. "I'd get a bit moralistic with them and tell them that God gave them two ears and one mouth," explained Horrocks. It will have been good preparation for dealing with Van Gaal.
"He's very focused on his work and that I admire when you are so young and there is so much attention now," said the the now departed United boss recently. "When you have criticism he can cope with criticism also. He can say: 'Yes, manager, you are right and I have to do that.' I think it's fantastic because not a lot of players can see their self-image in a match."
Van Gaal did stop short of embracing the comparison with Cristiano Ronaldo, a player who took 70 games to score his eighth goal for United. But he happily named Rashford in the same breath as Patrick Kluivert and with Sir Alex Ferguson calling the teenager "a sensation and one of the best in years" there will be those worrying about the growing expectations.
"Normally the first matches a debutant plays are good," said Van Gaal initially. "But it is the consistency - he has to show it in the third, fourth, fifth match." Rashford has extended his good form rather longer than that, but we are still talking about a player with only five Premier League goals to his name.
That raises the question of whether or not Rashford's form is sustainable. Sheringham may have stated that Rashford "seems to be scoring all types of goals at the moment" and pointed to the player's knack for being in the right place at the right time, but the truth is that his conversion rate is unusually high. That simply cannot be expected to continue.
Rashford has scored with 56 per cent of his shots in the Premier League. That's more than any other player - twice as efficient as Sergio Aguero and three times better than Harry Kane. To put it another way, it could be seen as a reflection of how few goals he should be getting for this shot output. Expected-goals models would expect some regression here.
"For a lot of young players, it's not the initial burst, it's coming back from the dip," says Round. "You burst onto the scene, you're fresh, you're innocent and you don't understand the implications of failing, the media treatment and the pressures that come with it. You just play and you love it. You want him to maintain that as long as he can.
"Manchester United have the right coaches keeping them grounded, keeping their feet on the floor, making sure they understand they have to work for success and that it's not given to them on a plate - that there's a responsibility to being a United player. Once that's established by the club it gives the young players a better chance.
"But there will come a stage where his form dips, he might get an injury, and then it is dropping back into your own environment, regaining your learning experiences, learning from the coaches and players around you and then coming back again fresh and new. It's how they come back that really matters. That's when they really establish themselves.
"A lot of it is down to your mentality as a player. That's why there are so few who actually make it to the very top. There's no doubt a lot of players - including Rashford - have the physical and technical talent to be top players. It's whether they can put it together mentally and still play at the highest level when the pressure is on."
There is no reason why, if he does exceptionally well, he can't knock someone off their perch.
In that respect, we'll find out more about Rashford very soon. "It'll be very interesting to see what he can do," said Hodgson. "There is no reason why, if he does exceptionally well, he can't knock someone off their perch. I think he's got a future if he can continue to develop as he's developed so far."
When attitude, ability and opportunity converge like this, there's little reason why that development can't continue. The list of admirers already includes Ferguson, Van Gaal and Wenger, and while Rashford's eventual level remains uncertain, he's surprised people before. Where this young man is concerned, "exceptionally well" cannot be ruled out.
