A lot has happened to Marcus Rashford in the 13 months since Manchester United’s teenage striker dumped Martín Demichelis on his backside and ghosted through on goal to settle last season’s derby at the Etihad Stadium, but he remains largely unchanged.

His instincts are sharper, his footballing brain more cultivated after a season working with that master manager Jose Mourinho, the biceps a little bigger, and his reputation as one of Europe’s brightest young stars is firmly entrenched. With Zlatan Ibrahimovic injured, he is the player Manchester City will fear most when United return to the Etihad on Thusday evening in a potentially make-or-break game for the top-four hopes of both clubs.

At heart, though, Rashford is still the boy whom United’s coaches would frequently find knocking a ball on to a garage roof and trying to control it as it came down whenever they drove round to his house to pick him up for training.

“No one in my family used to drive when I was younger, so we used to have a coach from the club pick us up from Northern Moor,” Rashford explains, smiling at the recollection. “I didn’t know they were there watching but, yeah, before they came I’d be throwing the ball up on to the roof, then turn around and wait for it to drop down. But we had to stop because the tiles kept falling off the roof.”