Marcus Rashford: As an all-round player I improved a lot under Jose

The 22-year-old forward has insisted that the spell under the tutelage of Jose Mourinho made him a better player.

When Mourinho was in charge of Manchester United, Marcus Rashford scored 28 goals and bagged 20 assists in total. However, he often donned a secondary role upfront as firstly Zlatan Ibrahimovic and later Romelu Lukaku occupied the striker’s slot.

Whilst many criticized the current Tottenham Hotspur boss for shunting him to a wider role in the frontline, the player has pointed out some positives in the same.

Marcus Rashford asserted, “It was tough but I think when you look back on it in five or six years, they're the moments that give you that mental toughness. As an all-round player, I've improved a lot and a lot of it is down to those two years under Jose. We had ups and downs. When I look back at it, it was a tough period but definitely a period that made me a better player.”

He put some light on the impact that Ibrahimovic’s impact had on him. The mercurial Swede striker amassed 29 goals in 53 matches during his brief one and a half year tenure with United. However, he is believed to have had a rather positive influence on several United players.

The young forward opined, “His mentality was beyond anything I'd ever played with before. He didn't care what anyone would say to him or what anyone was saying about him. In terms of his mentality he was key to my development, especially when Jose was there because he was someone who had played under him before and he knew you had to be a certain type of way to survive under him.”

Marcus Rashford has relished the added responsibility ever since Ole Gunnar Solksjaer took over the mantle from Mourinho. This season, the Englishman recorded a career-best 19 goals in all competitions. However, a back injury has kept him out of footballing action since January.

The fitness concern had casted doubts over his potential involvement in England’s run in the Euro 2020. The postponement of the continental championship to the next calendar year due to the COVID-19 pandemic across the world has, however, set aside these apprehensions.

Marcus Rashford pondered upon these issues in the podcast. He observed, “Yeah, for me I was probably going to go back with the team in the middle or end of April, but that would have been a push because obviously I didn't want to miss the summer. I doubt I would have been 100 per cent fit going into that tournament or even finishing off the season, but that's what we were aiming for and obviously, since then a lot has happened with this virus.”

The player remarked, “So, for my body, really, it's been good to just let it (rest). I can give it its full duration to rest.”

He has also contributed significantly in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. He collaborated with the FareShare charity and rose around £20m in recent weeks. This amount would be used to feed school-going children during the pandemic.

He mentioned, “I think it's just around £20m now. It's a big number. At first, the donations were going kind of slow. I put a bit of money in myself, it was at like £50,000, £60,000 and then, I just remember two days later, it was at £140,000 and something.”

Continuing on that, Rashford said, “It got to the stage where we had a lot of donations, more than we expected, and we were actually struggling to deliver the food to people. So that's where the bigger companies like Tesco, Co-op, Asda have come in and helped us with deliveries and that side of things, and their own large donations as well. So yeah, it's definitely a big positive.”

The forward also explained how such a situation could have impacted him as a kid if it would have happened 10-15 years ago. Hence, according to Rashford, it is just a way to try and help the people and the kids especially.