Marcus Rashford has hardly played a minute of football for Manchester United this season, but his efforts have already been rewarded.
Rashford received a nomination for the club’s October Player of the Month award, a short-list that admittedly was pretty short.
He scored three times in four matches, despite only starting twice.
The 24-year-old netted in the 4-2 defeat against Leicester City, his first competitive appearance of any kind since the European Championship final.
With the forward’s shoulder seemingly fully healed, he wasted no time in flexing his attacking muscles.
After the Leicester loss, Rashford grabbed goals in wins over Atalanta and the 3-0 Tottenham Hotspur triumph last Saturday.
Already, the England international is United’s third top scorer this term.
Cristiano Ronaldo remains in front with seven goals, two of those arriving in the last quartet of games.
Ronaldo x Rashford
Ronaldo also received a vote for the monthly in-house honour, alongside David De Gea.
This is regardless of his underwhelming exhibition at the King Power, then an even more disappointing display during the 5-0 humbling at the hands of Liverpool.
Granted, the 36-year-old did score and assist against Spurs, not to mention saving Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s skin at home to Atalanta.
However, it was certainly not the greatest four weeks of Ronaldo’s illustrious career.
The fact he was even put up for the POTM highlighted how poorly United had performed in that period.
It also shed light on Rashford’s worth to the side, both in the short and long term.
Continue in this vein of form, with a run of starts, then the no.10’s output at the end of the campaign could be phenomenal.
Numbers that may well rival Ronaldo’s, although keeping up with Portugal captain is proving harder than anticipated.
If the pair keep rippling the net – and United sure up defensively – then Solskjaer may just live to see another day.
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