Erik Den Hag defends Marcus Rashford criticism about struggling on the right wing

The manager of Manchester United, Erik ten Hag, refuted a claim made by an interviewer that Marcus Rashford "struggles" on the right wing.

In order to secure a 2-2 draw on Wednesday night at Old Trafford, the Red Devils overcame a two-goal deficit thanks to goals from Rashford and Jadon Sancho, who came on as a substitute.

After Wout Weghorst was substituted after an hour, Rashford moved into the middle and scored three minutes later. Rashford had started the game on the right side with the Dutch forward up top.

Afterward, Ten Hag was told that the England international "seems to struggle a little bit to get into the game" when he plays on the right, but the United manager strongly disagrees.

Viaplay asked him the question, and Ten Hag laughed and answered.  ‘Well, which game was it? It was against Burnley he scored twice from the right, great goals.’

The interviewer was apologetic after Ten Hag’s comeback, saying ‘my bad’, before Ten Hag nodded in agreement and continued: ‘Yeah. Marcus Rashford is scoring from everywhere. It doesn’t matter if it’s from the right, in the centre or over on the left.

‘He’s scoring from everywhere and today he showed it again.’

Asked if Rashford could lead the line from the start on Sunday, the Dutchman replied: ‘First off, this game, we analyse it, we will reflect on this game. Then we will see how the team is and then we will start our efforts.

‘I’m very pleased Marcus is scoring from all the positions. You see his stats, he’s scoring from the left, right, middle. It doesn’t matter. He’s always a good option to play on the right. We can move him around and give a different dynamic in a game.’

He added: ‘It’s difficult to analyse but I think after we made that change it’s different for the opponent, it’s difficult for the opponent, because the dynamic changed. The defenders are in a certain way.

‘They are anticipating on a certain attack then all of a sudden everything is changing, where we moved not only Rashford but we brought in [Jadon] Sancho and we brought in [Facundo] Pellistri. That changes the game as we did Saturday as well then he takes benefit from that situation, I think.’