MANJESTER UNITED
Lingard: Two-goal Rashford feels down when he’s left out.. but he can always count on me to cheer him up
MANCHESTER UNITED 2 Rashford 14, 24 LIVERPOOL 1 Bailly 66 og MARCUS RASHFORD has not been allowed to feel sorry for himself over his lack of starts for Manchester United this season.
His United team-mate, close friend, and chief dressing-room joker Jesse Lingard revealed how he helped lift Rashford after the first real setback of the young striker’s burgeoning career.
“You can’t be depressed around me,” said Lingard. “I’m always winding him up. It’s good you can be around him to have a laugh and reassure him that it’s going to come good and that, if he gets a chance, he will perform, which he’s done.
“It’s a big club with big players and, for players like me and Marcus, it’s going to be tough to start every game. But, once you’re on the pitch, you’ve got to make an impact and maybe next game you’ll be playing.
“He’s got good people around him, they always assure him he’s in a good place, and what kid wouldn’t want to be at United at the moment?
“He’s doing well, he’s come in, he’s got the right mentality and shown the manager what he can do. He can do that against any team, he has that level of confidence to do it so, if he can keep doing what he’s doing, the sky’s the limit.”
Being pranked by Lingard clearly had the desired effect on Rashford, who marked his first Premier League start since Boxing Day with both goals to sink arch-rivals Liverpool.
Rashford began the season as a regular starter, but then found himself forced back into the supporting cast, the January arrival of Alexis
Sanchez compounding his predicament.
Jose Mourinho insisted he never lost faith in Rashford, pointing to the fact the 20-yearold had been involved in every United matchday squad when fit this season to bolster his point.
Indeed, Rashford was philosophical about his plight and stressed the importance of the collective over the individual, although he hinted his prolonged exile from the starting line-up had got to him.
“In football, you’re going to be up, you’re going to be down,” he said. “The most important thing is sticking together as a squad. “Everyone turns up every day for training, we all work hard, we all do the necessary things. “We’re all in it together. Sometimes you’re in the team, sometimes you’re not.”
Asked if he had sought reassurance from manager Mourinho, Rashford said: “When you’re younger than I am now, and you’re learning the game, I think you do need it.
“But with experiences of the past, I understand that’s part of the game. There are 11 players that start – it’s just one of those things. For the future, it’s something you’ve been through before.
“If it happens again, you’ll probably deal with it better than the first time it happened to you.”
Rashford’s sublime opener (left) – cutting inside a befuddled Trent Alexander-arnold, before unleashing an unstoppable diagonal shot – was a glorious reminder of his precocious talent.
The goal came from a flick-on from Romelu Lukaku, who played a key role in the second, driving forward, with Rashford applying another assured finish to the loose ball.
Liverpool gave themselves hope when Eric Bailly got himself in a tangle and put the ball into his own net, with United spending the final quarter of the contest sat deep, defending their slender lead, aided by Liverpool’s strangely subdued attack.
The win was the perfect way to begin a run of three huge fixtures, which continues with tomorrow’s Champions League last-16, second-leg tie against Sevilla, followed by Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Brighton, both at
Old Trafford.
“These are the games that we want to play in and everybody wants to watch,” added Rashford.
“We can use the confidence of this game to push us through the next two. Our focus now is on the Champions League.”