England boss Gareth Southgate says Marcus Rashford is ‘a special talent’ who must be looked after properly and given time to grow.
The Manchester United forward scored the only goal of the game as the Three Lions beat Switzerland 1-0 in a friendly on Tuesday to follow up his strike in the 2-1 Nations League defeat to Spain on Saturday.
The 20-year-old was part of England‘s World Cup squad but did not feature much as Harry Kane was largely supported by Jesse Lingard, Raheem Sterling and Dele Alli in Russia, but Southgate is a huge fan of the forward.
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The England boss says it is easy to forget just how young Rashford is and that he must be given time to develop further.
“He is a special talent,” he said. “We have to remember that Harry Kane at that age had hardly played anywhere near the matches for Spurs.
“You can even compare it to some of those other top players who have broken through.
“Some of the step-overs and things (Cristiano) Ronaldo was doing at that age [were remarkable], but Ronaldo wasn’t converting them into the same number of goals.
“So we have got to give Marcus time to develop. He has still played a lot of football although maybe not the continuous starts and I’m really pleased for him that he leaves here full of confidence.”
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