Marcus Rashford scored one and set up another as Manchester United overcame illness problems to beat Nottingham Forest and move within a point of the top four.
Rashford converted a brilliant opener after 19 minutes when he was picked out by Christian Eriksen in a pre-planned corner routine, allowing the striker to clear a first-time shot past Wayne Hennessey to end Forest’s own run. took advantage of the failure to track.
The England forward turned provider three minutes later, cutting in from the left and passing to Anthony Martial, whose low finish from the edge of the area found the net after Hennessey failed to hold on.
The Forest keeper denied Anthony, Martial and Rashford before Fred benefited from a superb ball from fellow Brazilian Casemiro to find the bottom corner three minutes from time.
Forest never recovered from that first-half double blow, although one of their goals was disallowed by VAR just before the break.
Steve Cooper’s men have not scored a league goal away from the City Ground since August 20 and are in second place.
For United, it completed a fourth consecutive victory in all competitions and underscored the view that Cristiano Ronaldo’s exit will not have a negative impact on the rest of their season.
Can Rashford and Martial solve Man Utd’s striker woes?
Strikers have been the talk of the town since Ronaldo’s contract expired last month.
PSV Eindhoven’s Cody Gakpo was certainly on their radar before he agreed to move to Liverpool, even if a potential transfer fee would have ruled him out of moving to Old Trafford last summer. Given the significant spending that manager Erik ten Hague demanded.
Unless the situation changes, the best Ten Hague can hope for is a loan signing.
However, on nights like this, it’s not clear that he actually needs reinforcements.
Injuries have limited Martial’s involvement this season but the Frenchman now has five goals and is effective in the number nine role, even if he prefers to attack from wider positions.
And Ten Hague said before the game that Rashford, 25, has the potential to score 20 goals in the league.
Had substitute Alejandro Garnacho sent off the England man with a second-half cutback, Rashford would have doubled his tally for the night, which, as it stands, takes him into double figures for the season in all competitions. goes
With Garnacho and Anthony Elinga forming a decent partnership off the bench, Ten Hague will need to look hard to find someone who is good enough and within the club’s budget.
VAR disallows a rare Forest goal.
At the start of the month, former World Cup final referee Howard Webb took over the elite officials in England.
He has vowed to speed up the VAR process and try to fix some of the problems it still faces within the English game.
Nevertheless, Webb said events involving multiple issues were always a problem and Forrest was on the wrong end of one just before the break. It took Andy Medley and his teammates three minutes at Stockley Park to settle.
Looks like Ryan Yates has moved on to the away post. However, there was a potential handball that needed to be checked. Once those replays were studied, it appeared that Willie Boley had deflected the ball home.
As it turned out, Yates didn’t manage. But the volley was offside and would have been Forest’s first Premier League away goal since Brennan Johnson scored in a 1-1 draw at Everton.
