Erik ten Hag is confident Marcus Rashford “will fly” once he bags a goal or an assist for Manchester United.

Rashford is yet to make his mark on the 2024/25 campaign and his performances have been continually scrutinised after 12 months of indifferent form.

The Englishman was named in United’s starting lineup for the trip to Southampton, which saw Amad recalled at the expense of Alejandro Garnacho, and Ten Hag reiterated his belief that things will turn around for the 26-year-old.

“”Not only today, but he’s in a good place and he needs a goal or an assist. Last game he had very good crosses,” Ten Hag told TNT Sports. “That moment will come, we will wait for that momentum and then he will fly.

“All strikers want to score and from my experience once a striker starts scoring they are going to fly.”

Manuel Ugarte, a £43m arrival from Paris Saint-Germain, was included in United’s matchday squad, but settled for a place on the bench as fellow new arrivals Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Joshua Zirkzee were all named in the starting lineup.

Christian Eriksen was also brought back into United’s midfield at the expense of the much-maligned Casemiro, with the Dane’s performances in training the key reason to Ten Hag picking him for the game at St Mary’s.

“He [Eriksen] has had a good pre-season, in training he’s had very good performances. So, he has earned a start,” Ten Hag said, before adding on Casemiro being left out: “We have a squad and we offer a lot of games, he will play I am convinced of this.”

The Red Devils were comfortably beaten by rivals Liverpool in their last Premier League outing, going down 3-0 at Old Trafford thanks to two goals from Luis Diaz and a 12th strike against United for Mohamed Salah.

Newly-promoted Southampton, meanwhile, have lost all three of their games back in the top flight and sit in the bottom three alongside Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

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