Marcus Rashford stats highlight how influential he has become

Rashford has generally been deployed as an inside-forward on the left flank, often cutting inside and looking for opportunities to shoot as either Brandon Williams or Luke Shaw overlap. Rashford has really established his role within the team with a greater clarity than ever before due to Solskjaer’s management, and, as a result, he has had – by almost every metric – the best season of his career to date.

In terms of specifics, he is having the best Premier League campaign of his career (1000+ minutes) in the following p90 (per 90 minutes) metrics: goals + assists (0.9), goals (0.7), shots (3.5), penalty-area shots (2), penalties won (0.19), xG (0.65) and xG+xA (expected goals plus expected assists) (0.79).

What this tells us really is that Marcus has really kicked on as a goalscorer and developed into a true inside-forward under Solskjaer. While his chances created and take-ons have decreased slightly, his shot volume and quality has improved significantly – which really paints a picture of his profile this season: a nominal left-winger who possesses the trickery and unpredictability to be effective from wide areas, yet often comes central to become a primary goal threat.

Rashford’s average of 134 minutes per league goal so far would project him scoring 20 in the league if – in theory – he was to play the rest of the season in full. That goes some way to contextualising how good the England international has been this season – his stock was already high and he was on track to double his previous best goal tally in the Premier League.