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 Manchester United are just a point outside of the top four after Marcus Rashford's 100th goal for the club beat a battling West Ham.

Rashford, who had an earlier header saved by Lukasz Fabianski, rose to brilliantly power home Christian Eriksen's superb cross seven minutes before half-time for the game's only goal.

West Ham were threatening throughout the game though, and after Said Benrahma came close in the first half, David de Gea superbly saved from Kurt Zouma's header in the second.

Substitute Fred later hit a post for United but, thanks to more fine De Gea saves, the hosts held on to move a point behind Newcastle in the table.

Here are the game's talking points.

We may still not have seen Marcus Rashford's full array of gifts

He's quick, he's better cutting in from wide areas and he is a very, very kind man. We know all this about Marcus Rashford.

But given how United have been coached in the past few years, there may still be more to know.

From Jose Mourinho's static approach to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's fun supply teacher vibe, you've never quite been sure just what it is United's players do in training, particularly the attacking ones.

Then after Ralf Rangnick's hands-off, scarcely bothered approach comes Erik ten Hag, clearly a committed coach who has specific ideas in mind for his players.

It may well be that Rashford's main position ends up being through the middle as a roving attacking menace, but coming in off the left here he was able to showcase an ability we didn't quite know he had.

That early low header which was saved by Lukasz Fabianski proved to be his sighter, as he followed that up with his superb, Cristiano Ronaldo-style thumping header that went high into the net past the Pole.

Where did that come from? And what else is to come?

In Ten Hag, Rashford might just have found the right manager at the right time.

Christian Eriksen's extra second



If anyone knows the value of time it is Eriksen, and it will have been that desire to make the most of the rest of his career that saw him make the decision to join United on a free transfer at the age of 30.

He'd have done so without any assurances of a first-team place, but with the hope that he could show his vast array of gifts on the grandest of stages.

Eriksen is a player who, at his best, looks to be playing the game a second ahead of the majority of players around him, seeing things that others don't see.

It was a superb cross for Rashford's goal, and a reminder that he could have a huge, if short-term impact on this Ten Hag revolution.




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