Marcus Rashford shows big-game character to atone for early error and vindicate Gareth Southgate’s faith

The 19-year-old stepped up when it mattered and his performance against Slovakia suggests he is likelier to be starting when England begin their campaign in Russia next June

Marcus Rashford atoned for his early mistake and was England's best player on the night (Getty Images)

Gareth Southgate wants his England players to take more responsibility, but he could not have expected Marcus Rashford to take quite as much responsibility as this. The Manchester United forward did the lot for England here at Wembley this evening: he threw a spanner in the works when he gifted Slovakia an early goal, before wrenching the spanner out single-handedly.

First Rashford set up Eric Dier’s equaliser and then, early in the second half, he scored the brilliant winner from distance. Rashford flung England towards second place in their group, then dragged them back up to top, one point away from the World Cup.

On Friday night against Malta Raheem Sterling had such a poor first half that he was hauled off for Rashford at the break. The performance of Rashford here today vindicates Southgate and suggests that the United man is likelier to be starting when England begin their campaign in Russia next June. This was big-game character and execution, stepping up when it mattered, exactly what the manager has been demanding from his young team.

The power of this story is that the only reason Rashford had to go on this one-man rescue mission was that his own mistake had got England in their mess, in just the third minute. Southgate encourages his wide men to play with freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility, and that means taking better care of the ball when playing out from the back. Rashford dallied too long in possession, and had it stolen from him by Stanislav Lobotka. Racing back, Rashford disrupted England’s defensive line and could only stand and watch as Lobotka tucked in the opening goal.

Southgate was not impressed and it was not hard to imagine what Jose Mourinho would have made of it had Rashfofrd made the same mistake for Manchester United. But English football loves a personal salvation mission and from then on this is what it was. Rashford looked singularly determined to reverse his mistake and win England the game. Which, given the number of England players who might have wilted, deserves plenty of credit.

Of course the problem with this kind of approach is that football is a team game. Too many times in the past English players have tried to take too much responsibility, at the cost of their team-mates. Rashford’s first act, after the goal, was to cut in from the left and whip a right-footed shot at goal, when a pass was on. But as the game went on he settled and improved. He never made any mistake as bad as when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, breaking forward in a three-on-three, scooped a selfish shot miles over the bar.

It was Rashford’s team instincts, too, that made England’s equaliser. Without that goal there would have been a very different feel going into half-time, but with eight minutes left he whipped a clever corner to the near post. Eric Dier made the darting run, turned the ball in, and Rashford had half the job done.

But what he really needed was a goal of his own, a winner, to secure the three points to send England to the brink of the World Cup. It nearly came in the last minute of the first half when he whipped a low shot at goal, in off the left flank.

Rashford did not need to wait too much longer after that. He started the second half with the aggression and focus of a man set on seizing the occasion for himself. There was one clever little backheel to Dele Alli, and then a run down the left, with stepovers, trying to make himself space.

With Rashford’s next move he came inside for the ball and delivered the moment he had been desperate for ever since his early mistake: 25 yards out from goal, Rashford looked up and drove the ball into the far bottom corner, a finish that Harry Kane himself would be proud of. It was the greatest moment of Rashford’s international career so far but also, within the context of the evening, the perfect end to a happy little story.

Not many individual performances in any given game follow an arc this satisfying, but this one did. When Rashford was replaced by Danny Welbeck in the final minutes he was given a standing ovation, from fans who might very well have turned on him had things not turned out like this. But Rashford cleaned up the mess of his own making and on this stage that says something serious abut his skill and his character.