Marcus Rashford has admitted Manchester United were far from their best in the first half against Leicester City and believes the team needs to work on starting games better.
United eventually came away from Sunday's match-up with Leicester as 3-0 victors after a scintillating second-half display but that doesn't tell the full story. The Foxes were all over the hosts in the opening 45 minutes and only a couple of spectacular David de Gea saves stopped them from taking the lead.
Rashford opened the scoring towards the end of the half with a clinical finish completely against the run of play before smart tactical changes from Erik ten Hag changed things after the break. Jadon Sancho's introduction was pivotal as United were much more dynamic and Rashford doubled the lead as his fine form continues.
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Sancho himself added the third as he emphatically finished off a sweeping move and ultimately United could have won by five. But Rashford hasn't forgotten the poor start to the game and wants the team to work on coming out of the traps strongly.
"It's obviously a nice feeling to be scoring goals and ultimately winning games," the striker told Sky Sports after the match. "I think first half we didn't actually play that well, second half we played a lot better.
"We found people in pockets, found Bruno in pockets, Fred and they're creating chances for us. We need to try and look to do that from the beginning but it's also a positive that we're not playing at our best and going in at halftime a goal up. So definitely stuff to improve on and learn from but overall a good day."
United have got a gruelling fixture list coming up as they compete in three different competitions before their next league outing but Rashford hasn't got a thought of taking his foot off the gas. He continued: "I think it's difficult, to be honest, not to keep pushing we're still early on in the season and we're fighting for a lot of different things.
"We have another big game coming up in midweek [Barcelona] to go hopefully go through to the next round of the Europa League and a massive game on the weekend for us. There's always something to push and look forward to. I don't feel like slowing down and I'm just trying to improve.
United are now five points off leaders Arsenal and when asked about the title race, Rashford replied: "Obviously we're there, we're close, at the same time both teams in front of us are really good teams and playing good football at the minute as well. We have to just focus on ourselves and do as well as we can and keep trying to pick up points."
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