Rashford hopes hat-trick heroics give Allardyce and Mourinho food for thought

Nothing has overawed Marcus; from scoring on his Europa League debut to following it up with a brace against rivals Arsenal just a few days later to scoring on his senior England and U21s debut.

“It was a good debut to have”. We worked hard for the whole 90 minutes and I think in the end we deserved the result.

“I was very clear in my mind that there are other things I want to do first”, he said, with his Young Lions top of Group 9 with three games left.

Meanwhile, Rashford’s manager at United, Jose Mourinho, has also endorsed the decision to select him in the under-21 squad.

“But from a selfish point of view, just thinking about me and the evolution of my player, I prefer him to play matches with the under-21s”.

Gareth Southgate started Rashford up front in the European Championship qualifier against Norway and the 18-year-old didn’t disappoint, netting on 29, 65 and 71 minutes as the England youngsters battered the visitors.

“It’s easy if they have an experience with the senior team to come down and approach it in a different manner”.

It was a timely impact after Southgate’s men relied on goalkeeper Angus Gunn to keep them level before Rashford, who was full of application and enthusiasm, broke the deadlock. “You’ve enjoyed your week – I was tempted to say it was nice working with you”, he said.

The Chelsea trio Nathaniel Chalobah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Lewis Baker also scored to put England on course to reach next year’s tournament in Poland Ghayas Zahid scored for Norway to make it 4-1.

Southgate added: “The attention will be on Marcus and I totally get that, but there were some excellent performances”.