Photo Credit: Skysports.com
Marcus Rashford gave his chances of featuring for the England senior squad again soon no harm on Tuesday night, as he hammered home a superb hat-trick against Norway, in the under-21s Euro qualifying group stages.
The hat-trick demonstrated the 18-year-olds ability to run at defenders and leave them behind due to his lethal pace, his class and composure to score a curler into the top corner as the Norwegian defenders closed him down for the second, and the art of keeping a cool head from the penalty spot for his third (something any English fan will have been happy to see, considering our woeful penalty record).
The dominating display by the young English side ended in a 6-1 victory, and provides the nation with some optimism that the next crop of young talent coming through may be able to actually take us further than the Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham and Paul Scholes eras did. All of those players individually were world class, but it just never happened as a team.
Alardyce was in attendance for the game, just two days after he secured his first win in his first game as manager of England, as the senior side scored late on through Adam Lallana to secure a 1-0 victory over Slovakia,.
The England under-21 coach, Gareth Southgate, believes the performance of Rashford will have given Alardyce “food for thought” as he now turns his attentions to the next World Cup qualifiers against Malta and Slovenia, on the 8th and 11th of October, respectively.
“I wasn’t surprised in any way. What we saw all week from him, we saw tonight. I couldn’t have been happier with the way he approached everything.
“I’ll speak to Sam in the next couple of days, I’m sure it’s given him food for thought.” Southgate said of Rashford.
Rashford has already scored for England’s senior side, during the victory over Australia back in May – And scored a big goal in his only appearance in the Premier League this season, as his effort meant United edged to a 1-0 victory late on over Hull City.
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