Wayne Rooney describes similarities between Marcus Rashford & Harry Kane

Manchester United’s all-time record scorer Wayne Rooney has compared current forward Marcus Rashford with summer transfer target Harry Kane.

Rashford is enjoying his best season in a United shirt to date, already racking up 27 goals in 44 games across all competitions and leading them to Carabao Cup glory.

He has, however, had to shoulder the majority of the Red Devils’ scoring load – Bruno Fernandes (10) is the only other player in the squad to have reached double figures for goals this term.

90min understands that a new centre forward is on United’s wishlist for the summer transfer window, with Kane – now England and Tottenham’s all-time leading scorer – a target.

In his column for The Times, D.C. United manager Rooney praised Rashford’s resilience and played up similarities to Kane.

“If you think back to only a year ago, Marcus was in and out of the starting XI, hardly scoring, playing in different positions and the smile I remembered from that lovely kid who came through the ranks and broke into our team when I was captain was gone,” Rooney wrote.

“Now, he looks a totally different player and to be in a great place off the pitch as well. You can see he is enjoying his football and is more positive in his running. He penetrates with his runs off the ball and commits defenders when he’s on the ball – doing everything I wrote about wanting to see from him.

“He has always been a good finisher but, in front of goal, you can see the improvement that comes from confidence. He is taking his chances now without a second’s thought whereas before he was overthinking and taking that extra second, then not being as decisive with his finish as he should be.

“He reminds me of Harry Kane in how he puts the ball in the net. You almost never see Harry score a goal where he caresses it into the corner – every finish is hit hard and goes in with pace. Marcus is quite similar. When he gets in front of goal he puts his foot through it.

“What he and Harry do is actually a much harder skill than, say, stroking it home like Thierry Henry used to do. It’s harder because just like when you hit a golf shot and the harder you swing the less accurate you tend to be, you risk things going wrong. However when you develop the ability to get those finishes on target repeatedly, you become very hard to stop – like Harry throughout his career and Marcus recently.”