Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford has described returning teammate Anthony Martial as a ‘massive player’ and is delighted to have the Frenchman back on the pitch following another goal in the club’s 3-2 Europa League victory over Omonia this week.
United had to come from behind in Cyprus, with Rashford coming off the bench to equalise and Martial later adding to the two goals he scored in the Manchester derby at the weekend.
Rashford was involved in Martial’s goal as the pair combined in devastating fashion to give United the lead. Rashford then added his second goal and United’s third before Omonia hit back through Nikolas Panayiotou late on, making it a nervier finish than it had any right to be.
Martial, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Sevilla and has struggled with hamstring and Achilles issues so far in 2022/23, was singled out for his impact by teammate Rashford.
You can’t knock Ten Hag’s half-time changes!! 🤩
The assist from Rashford. The finish from Martial. Manchester United are 2-1 up! 👌#UEL pic.twitter.com/zQ8mihU2Ea
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) October 6, 2022
“He’s a massive player for us,” Rashford said. “He has been for a long time and, when he’s at it, he is an unbelievable player and I’ve always enjoyed playing with him.
“It was nice to link up with him to score his goal and we’ll be looking to do that more and more. I think it’s good for him. We’ve both been injured; he’s been injured a little bit longer than me so it’s good for him to get minutes, and for the second game in a row he’s come on and scored goals and made an impact.”
Rashford concluded: “[Erik ten Hag] wanted us to be a bit more dynamic, take more chances going forward and try to scored It was positive at half-time and we made positive changes.”
Ten Hag was critical of his team’s first-half performance, particularly the sloppy defending down United’s left flank that led to the opening goal and the reaction of his players immediately after Neil Lennon’s Omonia side unexpectedly took the lead.
“We started well, couple of chances, then…[that] mistake cannot happen, we have to take responsibility there,” he explained.
“You let the crowd get alive and we have to avoid that. But then we had a really bad 10 minutes and we have to learn from it. We were too static. We had to make movements in behind and that’s why we made the subs. They had a real impact. That makes the team stronger.”
United are quickly back in action when they face Everton away in the Premier League on Sunday.
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