Marcus Rashford’s 100th Manchester United goal was enough to beat West Ham and Old Trafford was a fitting tribute on the club’s 85th anniversary.
In 4,163 consecutive games since 1937, United have had a player who came through their youth development program either in their starting line-up or on the bench.
Rashford is the cream of the current crop and it was the England player who scored the winner against a determined West Ham side at Old Trafford.
The 24-year-old made Rashford the 22nd United player to reach 100 goals with a powerful header seven minutes after the break after Christian Eriksen curled in a superb post cross.
Cristiano Ronaldo is also on the list but after being given a starting spot due to an injury to Anthony, the Portuguese failed to capitalize, squandering an excellent second-half chance when he was tripped up by Rashford in the penalty area. I was sent.
In a thrilling finish, David de Gea made superb saves to deny Michael Antonio and Kurt Zouma, before, with almost the last move of the game, goalkeeper Surplus for the Spanish needed to save a great effort from Declan Rice. Failed.
The result was enough for United to extend their unbeaten run to eight matches and move up to fifth in the table, while West Ham’s discontinuity outside of European competition left them in 13th, the relegation zone. Just three points above.
Rashford Joins Man Utd’s 100 Club
Rashford, whose goal came a day before his 25th birthday, could not have picked a better time to find form as Gareth Southgate picks England’s World Cup squad on November 10. .
It was the first time he has scored in back-to-back games since January and, with a little more luck, he might have taken his total for the season past seven.
He scored three tries within the opening 16 minutes. For the former, he had the confidence to get past Ronaldo to take an initial shot from Diego Dalot’s low cross, which went wide. His low shot was then parried by Tomas Sucek before threatening West Ham’s first goal, in the end, Rashford’s header was saved by Lukasz Fabianski.
His historic goal owed much to the patience of Dalot, who refused to let in a quick throw-in by Casemiro and instead waited for Eriksen, who played a one-two with Bruno Fernandes before delivering a sublime cross.
Rashford fired another shot wide at the start of the second half but apart from Fred’s effort which came back off a post, the rest of the United heroes were at the other end of the pitch, De Gea impressively keeping West Ham out.
