Marcus Rashford reaches 400 appearances for Man Utd

Marcus Rashford, the teenager who took a break from his high school classes to impress on his debut for Manchester United back in 2016, reached 400 appearances for the Red Devils on Wednesday. The England striker, already a star of the Old Trafford side, is not living his best moment after a 2022-23 that seemed to settle him definitively in Europe's elite.
At just 26, the Manchester native still has the best years of his career ahead of him, but it looks like he will not make the impact that was anticipated after his hasty debut for the Red Devils on 25th February 2016. Rashford was 18 at the time and just a school graduate when Van Gaal, faced with Wayne Rooney and Will Keane out and Anthony Martial's subsequent warm-up injury setback, called upon him in a key game against Midtjylland in the Europa League.
Despite his call-up, the youngster was not expecting to get any minutes and advised his mother not to bother going to the game because he was not going to take the field. After Pione Sisto's early goal made it 1-3 in the tie for Midjylland, Rashford was instrumental with a brace as United came from behind in the second half to make it 5-1 and qualify for the last 16 with a 6-3 aggregate win.

The academy graduate's first-team debut continued in fine fashion three days later in a 3-2 win over Arsenal at Old Trafford in which Rashford scored another brace and provided his first assist. The next day, the striker was back at school to continue his studies in sixth-form. Rashford would not leave Louis van Gaal's side for the remainder of a term that would end with the icing on the cake of an England call-up for the European Championship.
You have to play a lot to make 400 appearances for a team at the age of 26. And that's the case for Rashford, who from 2016-17 onwards (he finished 2015-16 with 18 appearances, 8 goals and 2 assists) has virtually always hovered between 45 and 60 games per season. The only exception is the bland 2021-22, in which he barely made 32 appearances, only started 18 times and managed the worst numbers of his career with only 5 goals and 2 assists.
In contrast, the 2022-23 was his best. He played 56 games, scored 30 goals and set up another 9 for his teammates. On top of these figures, the feeling of superiority that he gave at various moments of the season under Ten Hag. That is why it has been so surprising that the Dutchman has not been able to make the most of him in a current season in which he had 40 appearances, 8 goals and 5 assists until this 400th game.

The striker's development until the unsuccessful 2021-22 had been gradual. In 2016-17 he appeared in 53 games, scoring 11 times and assisting teammates on 4 occasions. Both 2017-18 and 2018-19 had even numbers, with 52 and 47 appearances, 13 goals in both and 8 and 7 assists respectively. The same happened in 2019-20 and 2020-21, with 44 and 57 games, 22 and 21 goals, and 8 and 12 assists.
Therefore, his most appearances was in 2020-21 with 57 and that season was also the one with the highest number of starts for the striker with 46, along with 2022-23. The top goalscoring record was set two seasons ago with 30 goals and the season with the most assists was 2020-21 with 12. That campaign was also Rashford's only one with double figures in goals and assists.
There were high expectations for Marcus Rashford after his impeccable 2022-23, but the Red Devil attacker has been a shadow of the player who wowed European football a year ago. His poor form has even cast doubt over his participation in the next European Championship and only Gareth Southgate's confidence in him has kept him in contention.
The striker admitted about a month ago that he had been playing with discomfort and injury at various stages of the current season. Perhaps that justifies his poor form, which came under heavy criticism from Marco van Basten in the FA Cup semi-final that Manchester United overcame in somewhat miraculous fashion against a Coventry side that lifted the Red Devils from a 3-0 deficit to force a penalty shoot-out. "He hardly did anything in attack and just played the ball back to his team-mates whenever he received a pass," said the legendary Dutch striker of him.
Recently renewed by Manchester United until 2028, the club's faith in the striker is intact, but Rashford will have to win back the trust of a fanbase that has started to turn its back on him in recent games. In the background of this recent lack of support, the late-night outings of a player who started out as a model and seems to have lost his focus of late.