Gary Neville thinks Man Utd ace was the ‘best he’s been this season’ v Spurs – which is worrying

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Manchester United drew 2-2 with Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League.

Erik ten Hag will have to settle for just a draw in his first Premier League game of 2024, the points were shared at Old Trafford on the night.

Despite Manchester United leading twice through goals from Rasmus Hojlund and Marcus Rashford, Tottenham had answers for both and managed to equalise twice to make sure things ended all square.

United’s second goalscorer Rashford will be very grateful for his strike, considering his form this season.

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Gary Neville on Marcus Rashford

Rashford has come under a lot of stick during the 23/24 campaign. Naturally, being Manchester United’s top goalscorer last season, he was bound to get scrutiny if he wasn’t firing.

But after his strike against Spurs, Rashford is now to up six goals and five assists. This takes him to 11 goal contributions for the season. This is also now two goals and two assists in as little as four matches.

It’s times like this when he does deserve praise, which was dually given by Manchester United legend – Gary Neville.

Speaking on Sky Sports Main Event commentary following the 26-year-old’s second-half substitution, Neville had the following to say about Rashford:

“Yeah first half is probably the best he’s been this season,” Neville begins. “Not a particularly high bar he’s set, but he’ll be frustrated to come off in this second half.”

Rashford did look a lot more dangerous in the first half, however – should this be considered a good performance? Never mind his ‘best of the season?’

Marcus Rashford stats vs Tottenham Hotspur

Considering this was Rashford’s performance of the season in Neville’s eyes, his stats are rather worrying.

• 88 minutes played
• 1 goal
• 41 touches
• 9/16 accurate passes
• 21 times possession lost
• 6.9 rating

Sourced from Sofa Score

Now, stats don’t tell the full story by any means but we can’t help but think, that even his first-half performance, would have been one of Rashford’s worst performances at United last season.

We aren’t by any means saying he had a bad game, but what’s a little worrying is this may now be considered a promising Rashford performance, but once again he was rather mediocre – bar his goal. He was a bit more direct, but his decision-making was still very poor.

Rashford’s been a bit of an enigma this season, and despite his stats picking up, we know he’s nowhere near the level he would want to be. Ten Hag will just have to stick by him. He’s a ‘confidence player’ and hopefully the goals and assist contributions will do him the world of good moving forward.

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