Is there a better attacking player in England at present than Marcus Rashford, key to Manchester United’s derby win at City?

Is there a better attacking player in the country right now than Marcus Rashford? There’s a sentence you wouldn’t have expected to read eight weeks ago.

The answer, to be fair, is probably maybe; or may I introduce you to Sadio Mané, Son Heung-min and Jamie Vardy; or better still – never mind that, just enjoy the show.

It has been three years now as a first-team player for Rashford. There have been glimpses in that time, but never quite the numbers. Speed, skill, grace: here is a man who looks like a beautifully high-class attacker right up until the moment he has some high-class attacking to do.

Rashford and Martial give Manchester United derby honours against City Read more

Rashford has the numbers now. The opening goal in this 2-1 victory for Manchester United at the home of the champions made it 13 in his last 14 games for club and country. He was helped early on by an utterly spooked Manchester City defence. Later he was pushed to the fringes as City kept the ball, pulled a goal back and might have turned the game on its head.

But Rashford was irresistible in that opening half hour, cutting a series of elegant, magisterial lines with his runs off the back of the City midfield, a man playing with a kind of light around him.

Play Video 1:14 ‘Maybe next season will be better’: Guardiola reacts to Manchester derby defeat - video

The extraordinary balance and speed has always been there, even in his lean times. Add to this a gathering sense of certainty, the willingness to dribble, to reel off the whole range of tricks and spins, and he becomes a genuinely fearsome opponent.

United came to play from the start at the Etihad. Ole Gunnar Solskjær went for uncut speed and hustle in his front four, with Anthony Martial, Daniel James, Jesse Lingard and Rashford a daunting prospect for 34-year-old defensive fill-in Fernandinho and the reliably unreliable John Stones.

This United against this City is a clash of styles in so many ways: zigzags versus straight lines, triangles versus squares. From the start there was a predictable rhythm, that heavy blue cloud pushing United back towards their own goal, all cuts and digs and teasing geometry.

In between United broke with a thrilling sense of menace, red shirts haring across the halfway line three abreast like a 60m sprint semi-final. Even before they took the lead there were four fine chances, each coming at the end of a move that found improbably huge green spaces in between the light blue shirts.

Manchester City investigate alleged racist abuse aimed at Jesse Lingard Read more

With 20 minutes gone Rashford found space again, changed direction in that distinctive way, like a champion skier performing a parallel turn, then just decided to trust himself and run, drawing Bernardo Silva into a wrong-footed lunge.

It was a clear penalty, one that was earned too, a product of Rashford’s ability to slink from side to side a little quicker than anyone given the job of stopping him. Rashford waited for the VAR check, swallowed down the three-minute delay, ambled up and nuzzled the kick into the corner of the net.

United kept coming. Five minutes later Rashford shimmied right, stopped, then found himself all alone in front of goal on the edge of the area. He went for a casual, showy dink and hit the top of the bar. He does this quite a lot. It’s not just bad luck.

Moments later it was 2-0. James and Martial combined beautifully under very little pressure, working a hole large enough for Martial to scuff a low shot into the net. United’s players reeled away en masse, hurtling like a flying red wedge towards the nearest corner flag, a team running on pure shared adrenaline.

This level of one-way intensity was never really sustainable. City are too good. They pushed hard, pulled a goal back, and might easily have levelled it. But United showed some gristle too. At the end of which this slightly thrown-together team has arguably the best win of the current mini-era.

Mourinho last week, Guardiola this. If football management worked like boxing Solskjær would have been parading the Etihad pitch at the end draped in lineal world title belts.

In the real world this has been a wonderfully bracing week for Manchester United’s manager. His team has found a shape and a style, albeit one that seems likely to work best against teams that keep the ball and offer space for those counterattacks.

But Solskjær will enjoy this moment, and rightly so. This is such a difficult job. Managing Manchester United is like trying to invade the Siberian tundra. The horizon just keeps on moving away, the sky growing larger, the hills more distant. For the last six years it has simply absorbed energy, offering little back but blame and acrimony.

Doubts will of course remain. But this week has brought the first suggestion of actual improvement. Look up and United are five points off fourth spot in the table. Best of all there is a glimpse now of an evolving Ole-ball style, meat on the bones of all that talk about pace and fitness and hard-running attack. For Solskjær Rashford has become a defining note in a way of playing, a way of trying to be Manchester United. He repaid that faith here handsomely.