FIVE ASIDES (AND ONE EXTRA) Premier League: United 1, West Ham 0
One day a book will be written about the importance of older siblings in the life of a sportsperson. Marcus Rashford’s brothers, Dwaine and Dane, had challenged him to reach 100 United goals before his 25th birthday, and he delivered with a day to spare. The goal was one to remember, not just the winner but a bullet header, with Rashford taking a curling, craftsmanlike cross from Christian Eriksen and adding some unstoppable directness. He often seems reluctant to head the ball, as anyone might be seeing what it has done to football’s old-age pensioners. Over the past four full seasons, only two of his 61 goals for United were headers – but here he made it two in four days. Rashford is the 22nd man to reach 100 goals for United and surely the first to have collected an honorary doctorate along the way.
With his campaigning, against hunger and in favour of literacy, Rashford has made the nation a better place. He had a nightmare last season not because of his political work, as the old pros tend to assume, but because he was making his way back from injury, he was out of form, he’d had a break-up with his long-term girlfriend Lucia Loi, and he clearly didn’t click with Ralf Rangnick, who took almost as dim a view of him as Jose Mourinho. Now he has a manager who believes in him, he’s fit and strong, he’s running like the wind again, he’s heading the ball better than Cristiano Ronaldo, and he and Lucia are engaged.
Rashford has been at United for 17 years, or two-thirds of his life. That could have been a recipe for caring only about football and speaking just the one language, dressing-room banter. But thanks to his own open mind and his powerhouse of a mum, Mel – who had three jobs at the same time to feed the family, and still sometimes went hungry herself – Dr Rashford has achieved more in his spare time than most of us do in a lifetime. ‘I’ve known him since he was seven,’ one former United manager said last year. ‘He’s developed into a truly wonderful person.’ That was someone who doesn’t spray praise around lightly: Alex Ferguson.
Rashford was not United’s only star in this game. Eriksen was artful, Casemiro was commanding, Lisandro Martinez was fierce, David de Gea was acrobatic, Luke Shaw was purposeful and Diogo Dalot was immense, playing half as an extra midfielder, half as a third centre-back, forever getting his head to the ball first as West Ham pumped in the crosses. Most of United’s starters were playing so well that they could afford to carry a couple of passengers, in Ronaldo, still spraying his shots around, and Anthony Elanga, looking as lost as Rashford was earlier this year. If Anthony Martial could just stay fit, this United might be seriously good.
This was a big moment for Harry Maguire, making his first league start since the battering at Brentford. As he rejoined Dalot, Martinez and Shaw in defence, the band was back together – a band that had had no hits, as their only previous appearances were the Brighton and Brentford embarrassments. Maguire himself hadn’t started a game this season that ended in a win, for either United or England. He began indifferently, looking rusty and sluggish, making United’s attempts to pass out from the back painfully slow. If the first yard of pace is in the head, Maguire’s brain was no quicker than his legs. But he found his feet in the second half, when West Ham were all over United. A siege suits him nicely, as his lack of pace isn’t exposed and his head is required only for heading. The spirit that the defence had engendered in his absence was just the same, shining out of their hugs, yells and chest-bumps. Maguire didn’t exactly look like the captain – this team has several leaders, from Martinez to Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes – but he did well enough as the fourth-choice centre-back.
United might not have made such heavy weather of the win had Erik ten Hag managed some braver substitutions. For a manager who likes to attack, he can get very defensive. But overall he’s done a formidable job since that hapless start: in the last ten league games, including a full set of meetings with the big six, United have collected seven wins and 23 points. On 5 October the prediction machine at 538.com had them down to finish seventh in the table; now it puts them third.
Tim de Lisle writes about sport for The Guardian and music for The Mail on Sunday. If you’re on Twitter, do follow him and United Writing.