Half-ton Costa gives Chelsea breathing room
Blues establish seven-point lead at the top of table after Southampton win
lot has happened to Marcus Rashford in the 13 months since Manchester United’s teenage striker dumped Martin Demichelis on his backside and ghosted through on goal to settle last season’s derby at the Etihad Stadium, but he remains largely unchanged.
His instincts are sharper, his footballing brain more cultivated after a season working with that master manager Jose Mourinho, the biceps a little bigger, his reputation as one of Europe’s brightest young stars entrenched.
With Zlatan Ibrahimovic injured, he is the player Manchester City will fear most when United return to the Etihad today evening in a potentially makeor-break game for the top-four hopes of both clubs.
At heart, though, Rashford is still the boy whom United’s coaches would frequently find knocking a ball on to a garage roof and trying to control it as it came down whenever they drove round to his house to pick him up for training.
“No one in my family used to drive when I was younger so we used to have a coach from the club pick us up from Northern Moor,” Rashford explains, smiling at the recollection.
Diego Costa scored his 50th and 51st Premier League goals as Chelsea overcame spirited Southampton 4-2 on Tuesday to establish a seven-point lead at the top of the table.
Costa set up Eden Hazard’s early opener, which was cancelled out by Oriol Romeu, before Gary Cahill restored the hosts’ lead at a cold Stamford Bridge.
Costa sealed victory with a second-half brace, ending a seven-game goal drought and heaping the pressure on secondplaced Tottenham Hotspur, who
“I didn’t know they were there watching but, yeah, before they came I’d be throwing the ball up on to the roof, then turn around and wait for it to drop down. But we had to stop because the tiles kept falling off the roof.”
Along with Tottenham’s Dele Alli, Rashford may be the most gifted player England has produced since another street footballer by the name of Wayne Rooney burst on to the scene as a 16-year-old with Everton
Rooney’s example
Few could have a better understanding than Rooney of what Rashford is going through. Of how dramatically the 19-yearold’s life has changed since he was parachuted into United’s starting XI for a Europa League tie against FC Midtjylland in February last year, scored twice to spare Louis van Gaal more embarrassment after a 2-1 first-leg deficit to the Danish club and followed that up with two goals on his league debut against Arsenal. So, has he leaned on Rooney for advice about how to cope with so much pressure so young? “I’ve not had to ask him that because were to visit in-form Crystal Palace yesterday.
“Today I have to be pleased with the effort of my players. It wasn’t easy after a tough game against Tottenham,” said Chelsea manager Antonio Conte.
“We must be confident for the future. It’s important to look at ourselves and not the other (Spurs).”
Having beaten Spurs in the FA Cup semi-finals on Saturday, Chelsea’s latest win reaffirmed the status of Conte’s side as England’s team to beat. I think I’m coping well with it, but I’m sure if he thought that I wasn’t then he’d be the first one to have a chat with me about it,” Rashford says.
“I think his way of letting me learn is go and do it but if there’s something wrong he’ll get involved and say, ‘Well, you could have done this at this moment in time’.”
There have been plenty of role models down the years at Old Trafford, but also others whose career trajectories Rashford has no intention of following. His friends remain those he grew up with in the inner city neighbourhoods of Withington and Wythenshawe. J’s Rhythm, a Caribbean takeaway on Button Lane, was a popular hangout. “I used to live opposite those shops,” Rashford says. “It’s changed now. It is not the same workers as when I was there.”
The bond with his older brothers, Dane and Dwaine, who also acts as his agent, is strong. “My group is quite closed,” he says. “I don’t bring new people in, maybe that is a bad thing, but I don’t leave myself open to giving anyone an opportunity to tarnish me. The same lads I have been with since I was seven, eight, nine, 10 are the same friends now.
It might be a small thing but, in an age when black boots almost seem antiquated, they remain Rashford’s choice of colour. No luminous pink for him. “Growing up here at United there was a black-boot-only policy, I think it might have only just gone, but from being a kid here at nine years old there has always been that,” Rashford said.
Perhaps because he has been used primarily in a wide position by Mourinho, the misconception is that Rashford has not played that much this season when, in fact, only Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba have made more appearances than his 45. Rashford believes he is a far more rounded player, even if the task of leading the line now falls to him with Ibrahimovic out for the season with a ligament injury
Rashford went more than six months without scoring in the league before a goal at Sunderland prompted a run of three in his past five matches but he felt he was developing all the time.
“His influence on the younger
They face a thorny trip to Everton this weekend and have now gone 11 league games without a clean sheet — their longest run since 1996 — but the finishing line is just five games away.
Trip return
Hazard, Costa and Cesc Fabregas returned to the Chelsea XI after starting Saturday’s 4-2 win over Tottenham on the bench and they combined for the fifthminute opener.
Fabregas’s pass from halfway sent Costa scampering away down players, especially, is fantastic,” Rashford said. “We want that to continue because he is making us into better players. Now, when I go to the left or right, I see it differently to how I pictured it last season. You will see the benefits in years to come,” he said. “What I have learnt from him is irreplaceable.” the inside-right channel and his cutback was swept into the bottom-left corner by Hazard.
The Belgian forward has now scored 15 goals in a Premier League season for the first time, his highest tally since netting 20 times for Lille in 2011-12.
The trio were at it again shortly after, Costa deftly cushioning Fabregas’s pass into the path of Hazard, who curled well wide.
But there had already been nervy moments in the hosts’ penalty area — an unmarked Jack Stephens volleying tamely at Thibaut Courtois — and before long Southampton were level.
Chelsea club captain John Terry came on for the final five minutes and was afforded a standing ovation in his first appearance since announcing he will leave the club at the end of the season.