Jose Mourinho was widely criticised after his dramatic reaction to Marcus Rashford’s bad miss early in to Manchester United’s win over Young Boys last week.

However, the manager has today singled the youngster out for praise, alongside Ander Herrera. Rashford assisted both goals for United against Southampton, while Herrera played in the ball to Anthony Martial to score against Arsenal.

Even the numbers, the stats that for me are not fundamental but sometimes they give us, they support our feelings, they support our ideas, or sometimes a contradiction to it but in this case I think it is just a confirmation with the numbers was the match where my team the globality of the 10 players run more and run more with higher intensity too,” Mourinho told a press conference.

We press the ball more, put difficulties to the opponent, we were fast in our transitions, so we had that spirit, we had that mentality that brought our game to a good level, to a better level. You know there are special players with special characteristics. Just to give you a couple of examples, Herrera, Rashford, they are the kind of players that even if their game was not phenomenal, that intensity, that desire, that passion, that sacrifice is always present.

Rashford has echoed these sentiments ahead of the Fulham game this weekend, claiming he gives his all every minute he’s on the pitch.

In the position we’re in now, when it’s difficult and we’re not playing our best football, that has to be the thing that you do first and foremost. That’s what was in my mind: that whatever happens, go out there and give 110 per cent so when you come off the pitch you have no regrets. There’s no secret, it’s just a direct correlation: if you work hard, you get results. That’s always the thing I naturally go back to, especially when things aren’t going well.

It’s just about hard work and us keeping on grinding out games when we’re not playing at our best, and at the same time we’re always trying to improve because we want to play our best football and that’s the level we have to get to.

The fans want to see us win as much as we want to win for them. We just need to put the performances together as we have the quality to beat teams, which is easy to say but can be difficult sometimes. Right now, we’re in one of those periods where it’s proving difficult, but it doesn’t mean we stop trying to improve or win the games. It just means we have to try harder. And we will keep trying harder.