Marcus Rashford believes being capable of beating the "biggest teams" has been the key to Manchester United's revival under manager Erik ten Hag this season.
United, who booked their place in the Carabao Cup final on Wednesday night, beating Nottingham Forest 2-0 at Old Trafford to seal a 5-0 aggregate victory, have beaten Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur this season. The Reds have turned Old Trafford back into a fortress with each of the four aforementioned clubs all leaving M16 empty-handed.
The Reds recorded their first Premier League win of the season against Liverpool back in August, kick-starting the beginning of the Ten Hag era after back-to-back defeats to Brighton and Brentford in his opening two games in charge. United have not looked back since the win over Liverpool and are in a strong position to finish inside the top four and win at least one trophy this term.
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After the 4-0 defeat to Brentford in August, nobody would have given United a chance of making a success of this season. However, under Ten Hag's guidance they have recovered very impressively, with Rashford now revealing what he believes has been behind their success.
"I think it starts with the belief," Rashford told Sky Sports, addressing United's transformation this season. "I think it is clear that we have the ability in the squad to go and win trophies and win the biggest games.
"We've shown, even at our worst, that we can beat the biggest teams and it's not luck. It's not, 'Oh, they had a lucky day'. Other than last season where we wasn't quite consistent with it, we have had good games against the best teams in the country and some of them teams, especially City over the last few years, Liverpool, Arsenal this season, they are probably the best teams in Europe and are definitely in that conversation.
"It all starts with just the belief and winning games against the likes of those teams gives you that belief that you can go on and win trophies. You're always having to compete with other teams, but we have almost had to take a step back from it and just work on ourselves and that is the manager's mindset."
Although United have experienced the odd bump in the road this season, such as the 6-3 defeat to City at the Etihad Stadium back in October, they have responded well to setbacks overall.
Rashford added: "That is the only way I have ever known how to improve your skillset; you can't compare yourselves to other people, you have to just work on yourself day in, day out. We have been doing that.
"We have had some bad defeats along the way that usually take us about three or four games to completely bounce back from, confidence-wise and results-wise. I think, at times, we have shown after bad results that we can not only come back and win the next game but go on a consecutive run of winning games and if you're capable of that you can always be in and around the opportunity of winning trophies."
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