Marcus Rashford continued his fine return to form on Thursday night, scoring an extra-time winner in Manchester United’s Europa League quarter-final against Anderlecht at Old Trafford to book a place in the semi-finals.

For Jose Mourinho, who last competed in Europe’s second-tier competition as Porto manager in 2003 when his side were crowned champions, it was a similar frustrating tale. All season long he has watched his side dominate games at home but fail to gain any result from such control.

The hosts, level with their Belgian opponents after a 1-1 draw in the first leg, got off to a good start when Europa League specialist Henrikh Mkhitaryan fired home a powerful effort after just ten minutes. However, from there Anderlecht began to unsettle the EFL Cup winners as they looked to force mistakes from the United defence.

It wasn’t long before their plans paid off and Sofiane Hanni bagged a scrappy equaliser to compound the nerves in Manchester.

With the tie level it was over to Mourinho’s side to turn up the heat on the Belgian First Division leaders, however, with chances missed left, right and centre as well as an uncharacteristically misfiring Zlatan Ibrahimovic it was proving hard to put some light between them and René Weiler’s side.

Further problems were to come for Mourinho when normal time came to a close, with the tie now into extra-time, top scorer Ibrahimovic was forced off with a horrible injury reminiscent of Chelsea defender Kurt Zouma’s a couple of years ago.

After a the first half of extra-time, in which Paul Pogba had the ball in the back of the net only to see the goal chalked off for a foul by Marouane Fellaini in the build up, a winner was finally found after 107 minutes.

Having been the culprit in the build up to Pogba’s disallowed goal, Fellaini was the provider when he nodded the ball down to Rashford who turned magnificently and found the bottom corner to send United into the semi-finals.

A third goal in four games, and a second of significant importance after his opener against Chelsea at the weekend as cast aside any doubts over his form this season, however, the pressure is now on with the Premier League run-in at a crucial point.

The assumption over recent weeks has been that United’s best chance of Champions League qualification is via the Europa League, however, a win over Burnley this weekend and Mourinho’s side are within one point of rivals Manchester City in fourth – who are in FA Cup action this weekend.

Furthermore, with the red half of Manchester having had a packed schedule, they still have a game in hand on Pep Guardiola’s side, meaning the race for the top four is still well and truly alive.

With that in mind, whilst Rashford has been back to his best in the last couple of outings – and with the absence of Ibrahimovic looking like it could be a lengthy one – the 19-year-old must well and truly step up into the star role everyone expects of him over the coming month or so.