Get the biggest United stories, analysis and transfer window updates delivered straight to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

His manager and teammates call him 'Powelly' but by the time Nick Powell sauntered off a drenched Leigh Sports Village pitch his moniker might have been upgraded to 'Pele'.

Powell scored twice for Manchester United Under-21s in their 6-1 thrashing of Leicester and toyed with his one-time teammates on a night he underlined his determination to remain in Louis van Gaal's first-team set-up.

Sporting the No.9 shirt, the 21-year-old could have registered a hat-trick inside 20 minutes and exhibited the kind of superior attitude that dismayed journalists in the Wolfsburg mixed zone last week.

Perhaps Powell was the striker on Van Gaal's bench at Bournemouth. He certainly played like one. Powell spent four months on loan at Leicester last season and, maybe keen to remind them just why he was brought in by Nigel Pearson, outfoxed the young Foxes.

Both of Powell's goals were simple headers but just three weeks on from his first appearance in over nine months he truly appears ready for senior football again.

This was the most ebullient football played by a United side this season. Slick, quick and incisive, their own brand of Fox-hunting was so entertaining manager Warren Joyce might be in line to take caretaker charge should Van Gaal not see out the next 18 months.

Devonte Redmond scored a pearler to make it 2-0 and captain James Weir extended the margin before half-time.

Mancunian midfielder Redmond rounded unconvincing Leicester goalkeeper Dion Henry early in the second-half and Timothy Fosu-Mensah, a revelation at right-back, assisted Powell's second and United's fifth.

It was a struggle to keep up with the scoring. Harry Panayiotou tapped in the most meaningless of consolations and substitute Marcus Rashford rounded off the scoring, wellying in United's sixth late on.

United: Johnstone, Fosu-Mensah, Tuanzebe, Williams, Riley, Goss, Harrop, Willock, Weir, Redmond, Powell

Subs: Fletcher, Rothwell, Rashford