Hours after being honored for his outstanding contributions off the field, Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford scored twice to contribute to Manchester United’s recovery on the pitch to beat Sheffield United 3-2 in the Premier League on Thursday.
The evening began with Rashford being honored, in a pre-recorded segment at the FIFA Best awards, with the fair play accolade from world football’s governing body for his valiant efforts and campaign to combat child poverty and pressuring the British government to continue in providing free meals.
“It will have a knock-on effect,” Rashford said, “because things will start to happen in other countries as well.”
The striker’s goals at Bramall Lane lifted United to sixth in the league, five points behind leader and champion Liverpool, with a game in hand.
“Once again we’ve done well to respond, going a goal behind, scoring three goals, and then of course, late on, if we don’t kill the game off it’s going to be tough at a place like this,” Rashford said. “Today we didn’t get anything that we didn’t expect. They fought for every ball, they wanted to win the game and they fought for 90 minutes, and in the end we managed to get the three points.”
The situation was a familiar one for United in coming back from behind with this being sixth successive away game in the league where the Red Devils fell behind before ultimately winning.
It was a bad start for Dean Henderson in the United goal when Harry Maguire dawdled around with the ball before attempting to make a return pass to Henderson but that was enough for Oliver Burke to quickly intercept the pass and flick the ball into the path of to score from close range.
Rashford’s equalizer in the 26th minute came when he pounced like a gazelle onto a superb ball by Victor Lindelof from his own half and with a sublime flourish sent the ball into a waiting net.
In the 33rd-minute, Paul Pogba fed Anthony Martial who clipped ball into the box and subsequently converted the rebound when goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale failed to deal with the forward’s initial effort.
Rashford was on target again six minutes into the second half when Pogba cut out a misplaced throw-in, turned smartly and produced a smooth pirouette to start a break from deep in the United half. Referee Michael Oliver allowed play to continue when Mason Greenwood was fouled in the middle of a fine team move that ended with Rashford outsmarting Ramsdale.
“The referee played advantage and in the end that’s probably why we get the goal, because it is a foul earlier on in the play,” Rashford said. “But from there it’s about reaction and runs and passes, and when we play one-touch like that, we can do that against every team in the league.”
Sheffield United finally found a way past its former goalkeeper again in the 87th minute as John Fleck swung in a corner and Lindelof’s header ricocheted back off McGoldrick into the goal.
And the hosts would have pulled off a remarkable comeback draw had it not been for Henderson thwarting Mousset in stoppage time.