Manchester United are paying the price for expecting too much of Marcus Rashford this season

Manchester United supporters feared how the team would perform when losing Marcus Rashford to a groin injury last month.

The club confirmed he would be unavailable 'for a few games' and that statement was deliberately ambiguous, but as it happened, Rashford was only absent from the match against Sevilla at Old Trafford and against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.

Although Rashford is the leading goalscorer at the club by some stretch this season, his goals were not missed in those matches, as Marcel Sabitzer produced a brace versus Sevilla and United were superior in every area when visiting Forest.

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Rashford returned to the squad for the away leg against Sevilla in the quarter-finals of the Europa League and he was brought on at half-time in that game, but was helpless to prevent United from crashing out of the Europa League.

The forward has started five consecutive matches since and he's found the net once against Tottenham. He's scored just twice since the beginning of April and his goals have started to dry up, a possibility which has been a concern all season.

Rashford has an impressive 29 goals and it's been the best campaign of his career. His turnaround has been remarkable, a joy to follow and he's been responsible for around 35 per cent of the team's goals across all competitions.

United, however, have over-reliant on Rashford producing in front of goal and Erik ten Hag hoped he could continue scoring at that prolific rate until the last day of the season, but that was not realistic and a lull was to be expected at some stage.

Away from Rashford, there is an obvious lack of firepower and results have suffered with his goals starting to