For some of those who were at Hotel Football on January 12, the news that Marcus Rashford is out for up to three months with a double stress fracture in his back may not have come as a total surprise.



Rashford was in attendance at the venue a stone’s throw from Old Trafford for a personal event where he met schoolchildren and chatted with Ryan Giggs, assistant manager at Manchester United when Rashford broke into the first team. “Learning from the best,” Rashford posted on Twitter. “Taught me loads over the years and still helping me now.”



But behind the smiles was a certain degree of pain. Rashford was said to have shown signs of significant discomfort in his back, particularly when trying to sit down. Such is the way with these kind of aches though, he was able to forget any distress while joining in with a brief, gentle kickabout game on the hotel’s synthetic indoor pitch.



Three days later he was playing for real, coming...