Manchester United: How Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial have lessened load on Bruno Fernandes

Blossoming strike partnership flourished again at Selhurst Park

It says everything about Bruno Fernandes’s ability that, on one of his quieter evenings in a Manchester United shirt so far, he set up the first goal and nutmegged Crystal Palace’s Luka Milivojevic to create the opening for the second. Even when he is not at his very best, he cannot help but be influential.

The 19-game unbeaten run – now United’s longest since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement – has essentially coincided with Fernandes’s arrival from Sporting in late January and the question throughout has been whether correlation equals causation. Just how much of United’s improvement can be attributed solely to the new signing?

The answer, really, is quite a lot. Pre-Fernandes, United were sorely lacking a player who was adventurous in possession and able to play in tight spaces.

If he has not already made it abundantly clear what he brings to this team, you can see it for yourself in the first goal – receiving the ball under pressure and playing a one-two, driving past three Palace players to the edge of the penalty area, then slipping in a team-mate to score with a wonderfully composed finish.

Yet for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, one of the more encouraging aspects of Thursday’s win at Selhurst Park will be that Fernandes was not the only one making those sorts of plays.

The team-mate receiving and returning the ball in the one-two with the Portuguese in the build-up to the first goal was Anthony Martial. Marcus Rashford, meanwhile, was the one applying the wonderfully composed finish. Together, they were even more influential on proceedings than Fernandes and appear to be operating on something of a wavelength.

Take the second goal, for example. Yes, the opportunity is only created because of Fernandes’s audacious nutmeg of Milivojevic but it originates from Rashford’s surge out of his own half and the assist is a delicately-weighted pass onto Martial’s natural right foot, perfectly timed for him to divert into the far corner.

The goal not only secured all three points for all intents and purposes, but also meant that Martial and Rashford have now assisted one another for a combined total of seven goals in the league in this term. Remarkably, that is the most of any United pairing in a Premier League season since Opta’s records began.

A move only a few minutes earlier was even better. Fernandes was the one surging out of his own half this time, spreading the ball wide to Martial on the left wing. Martial held the ball briefly, waited for Rashford’s under-lapping run then slipped him in towards the byline. Fernandes then spurned a golden chance, smacking Rashford’s cut-back against the post.

It was not particularly long ago that such harmonising between Rashford and Martial seemed a distant prospect. The pair were competing to play in the same left-wing wide forward position under Jose Mourinho, then fell further down the pecking order upon Alexis Sanchez’s ill-fated arrival.

Remember the goalless Champions League first-leg draw against Sevilla two seasons ago, when Mourinho dropped Paul Pogba only to be forced into bringing him on anyway? Rashford and Martial were his two other substitutes that night and were given no more than a quarter-of-an-hour to make their impact.

Within a year, Mourinho was gone and Solskjaer was staking his claim for permanent employment with an attack built around Rashford and Martial’s talents, while sidelining Sanchez and Romelu Lukaku. With Fernandes now in tow to feed the bullets, United have an varied and unpredictable attack for the first time in years.

“No-one thought in January that we would be in with a shout for top four,” Solskjaer said after Thursday night’s win, presumably thinking back to the defeat to Burnley, the nadir of United’s wretched first half of the season. Hands up. This correspondent certainly didn’t believe they would be within touching distance of the top four with two games to go.

But back then, there was no Fernandes. Rashford looked set to miss the remainder of the season with an easily preventable back injury. Martial had only just started to lift himself out of a long scoring slump, with plenty of doubts about his suitability as a centre-forward.

All that has changed in the time since, and though Fernandes has been the catalyst, the blossoming partnership between Rashford and Martial is lessening his load.