Manchester United’s inexorable return to the heights of the game is being led by Marcus Rashford, the lethal local hero. A glimpse of why Wythenshawe’s finest is such a force for joy and hope at United arrives not simply through admiring his thrilling work under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the six goals in eight starts, the exquisite finishes against Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City, but also in a wonderful warm-up cameo with his fellow substitutes before the FA Cup tie at Arsenal on January 25. Here was Rashford’s ability, audacity and popularity encapsulated in ten seconds.

Rashford’s touch of class, invention imbued with impudence, came during one of those quickfire box sessions designed to test technique under pressure. With Fred the piggy in the middle, desperately