Louis van Gaal delighted with attacking display

For every Wayne Rooney, who memorably scored a hat trick in the Champions League on his United debut, there is Federico Macheda – the Italian who scored on his first-team debut in April 2009 but has been on an unsuccessful tour of the English lower leagues ever since.

Oh no, he popped up again to put United 3-1 up, crucially putting them ahead on aggregate.

“I didn’t have another option”, Van Gaal said when asked about Rashford’s first-team promotion.

Only starting the game after Anthony Martial injured himself in the warm-up, 18-year-old Marcus Rashford made the most of his senior debut for Manchester United in the Europa League on Thursday night.

The makeshift backline was not tested early on as the hosts pressed, albeit without seriously threatening until a Rashford snapshot forced goalkeeper Mikkel Andersen to tip around the post.

Morgan Schneiderlin was next to go extremely close for the home side when his acrobatic effort just went wide of the Midtjylland goal.

It was Mata who set up Rashford’s opening goal on 63 minutes, before the youngster tapped in a second from Guillermo Varela’s cross on 75 minutes.

However there have been false dawns for the 22-year-old already this season at Old Trafford.

Herrera got a fourth goal for United before the end of the game from the penalty spot.

Memphis Depay is a flat-track bully. He looked uncomfortable and was beaten by Pione Sisto for his goal.

Smalling has been a key player for United this season and has established a solid partnership in central defence with Daley Blind. But United turned up the heat in the second half with Rashford scoring twice, first with a tap in and then scoring with a half-volley 12 minutes later. “You need these kind of matches and he played fantastic”.

“Glory, glory Man United” being blared out at every occasion.

“It was a great performance”.

Martial has become the latest doubt for that Barclays Premier League encounter, but his manager is remaining upbeat. “As I say, it’s another level but I think I’m very confident he shall do that”.

‘Once they came in for him I don’t think they’d have chosen anyone else. It is unbelievable too when you see this in advance of the match when we lose Anthony Martial. I hope that the fans shall have enjoyed this game as there has been a lot of spectacular football – there were a lot of attacking situations.

“The first match [for young players], they always play good”.