Juan Mata urges Marcus Rashford to stay calm after a blistering start to his Manchester United career
Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata has advised teenage striker Marcus Rashford to remain "calm" after scoring a brace each in his first two games for the English football giants.
Rashford on Thursday scored twice against Midtjylland in a Europa League game and then repeated the feat on his English Premier League (EPL) debut against Arsenal on Sunday.
"He needs to keep calm," Mata was quoted as saying by the Guardian on Tuesday.
"Everyone is going to call him, text him, speak about him and write about him, but he needs to keep calm because I think he has a bright future coming up ahead of him - he needs to keep playing his football."
The Spain international said Rashford is similar to his teammate and strike partner Anthony Martial who is presently out with an injury.
"He looks similar to Anthony Martial in a way, they're both quick and go against the defenders, they both have goals in their pocket. It's not about comparing, it's about taking profit from them," Mata said.
"As I was playing behind him, I just told him I would try to play passes in behind the defence; he's very quick so we just tried to connect between each other."
When asked if Rashford was undroppable, Mata said: "Yeah. In the first goal he was in the right position to put the ball in the back of the net, and the second was a great header because he had to give power to the ball and it's not easy to a header against Petr Cech.
"He knows where the goal is, and that's very important for a killer like him."
Along with Rashford, Timothy Fosu-Mensah was given his chance against Arsenal when Marcos Rojo had to be substituted for an injury and James Weir managed to sneak in five minutes of injury time after replacing Ander Herrera.