Marcus Rashford: Manchester United's unlikely talisman

The words of Marcus Rashford. It is a nice quote but factually incorrect. Mourinho is all about complete players. However, rather than making them, he tends to buy the finished article.

During his second stint at Chelsea, the sales of Kevin de Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Ryan Bertrand, Andre Schurrle, and Mohamed Salah were all sanctioned under his watch. None the finished article; all with differing but fairly deep wells of potential. In came Cesc Fabregas, Willian and Diego Costa amongst others.

Out the door on a permanent basis at United last summer, Will Keane, Tyler Blackett, Paddy McNair, Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin. All 23 or under bar Schneiderlin. None guaranteed to be elite-level players but surely too soon to make definitive judgements. Will’s brother Michael is surely testament to that.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic was an archetypal Mourinho signing. Talented obviously, but also highly experienced. Paul Pogba might be just 24 years old but he’s also a three-time Scudetti winner and a Champions League finalist.

With Mourinho, it appears an issue of trust; he does not trust inexperienced players to make the right decision in those high-pressure situations. That in itself is no criticism of Mourinho but it is his inability to acknowledge as much that grinds. It is part of his management philosophy that he has been steadfastly wedded to – and that has served him so well – since he rose to prominence with Porto circa 2002.

Mourinho would baulk at such a suggestion. However, the recent spate of debuts in the Premier League have coincided with the Old Trafford club surrendering any designs on finishing in the top four, and Rashford has had plenty of playing time, even if much of it has been spent out of position hidden in wide areas.

The 1,730 minutes Rashford has accumulated in the league looks, as a stand alone statistic, impressive. However, delve a little deeper and things look a little less rosy. Prior to Ibrahimovic's injury, the 19-year-old had started just four games in his preferred central position and three of those – Arsenal, Middlesbrough and West Brom – were when the Swede was suspended. The fourth, his standout performance against Chelsea came after Mourinho elected to rest the Swede ahead of Europa League second leg against Anderlecht. Ibrahimovic started 27 Premier League matches this season and not once did Rashford replace him.

The above supports the hypothesis that Mourinho felt that Rashford was not ready to lead the United line.

Yet, somehow Mourinho must now entrust Manchester United’s season – and by extension potentially his reputation – to Rashford; United’s emergent talisman in the stead of Ibrahimovic. Lose and it has been an unmitigated disaster of a first season given the money spent. More worryingly for Mourinho and United, it could be read as a continuation of a downward trend that arguably had its roots in Madrid.

This after a summer in which the club broke the world record to sign Pogba as part of a splurge that went north of £150 million. The League Cup and sixth place in the league, as things stand. If United's season is to be upgraded then the feeling is the 19-year-old will be central to it.

To be clear, Rashford has the makings of, to steal a phrase from American sports, a franchise player; he is that good. He should have been afforded the responsibility to share the burden of leading United's line with Zlatan.

Now afforded that opportunity, he has taken his chance. He was the catalyst for their best performance of the season against Chelsea and made decisive interventions against Anderlecht and Celta Vigo in the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Europa League.

Yet, as recently as March, Mourinho had more or less written off Rashford’s second season; one to be put down to experience, perhaps.

Two months later and Rashford has started the last three Premier League games as a substitute; such is his importance, he has been saved for the final against Ajax. That sort of protection has not been afforded to the club’s record signing Pogba – perhaps an admission that while United are undoubtedly a better outfit with the Frenchman in their starting XI, Rashford has emerged as the side’s indispensable player.

What makes Mourinho pre-Zlatan-injury stance on Rashford all the more perplexing is his skillset was a perfect foil for the way United have been set up. A counter-attacking side with a plethora of creative midfielders needs the threat of pace centrally. His mere presence on the shoulder shifts an opposing defence deeper, thus affording the aforementioned creative players pockets of space to thrive in.

Ibrahimovic has many attributes but pace has never been his virtue. In his whole career.

Rashford, in many ways is the antithesis of Ibrahimovic, in all but one crucial way: he, just like the Swede, revels in the big occasion. If Mourinho’s distrust of youth is due to their propensity to be overawed then it should not apply to Rashford.

In order, he has scored on his European, Premier League, League Cup, England and England U21 debut.

Were he to add a European final to that list it would make him at 19 years and 205 days the second-youngest goalscorer for United in a European final, after Brian Kidd celebrated his 19th birthday with an extra-time strike in the 4-1 win against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup showpiece.

It would provide another chapter to United’s storied commitment to youth and represent an uplifting end to a season for the club of the Busy Babes and the Class of ’92.

Mourinho will have won the only European cup competition to elude the Manchester club, and that feat will have been achieved with a local youth product central to the success. History will reflect on that generously – even if it was more by nature of circumstance than the Portuguese’s judgement.