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Marcus Rashford must start up front against Barcelona in the Europa League

Marcus Rashford has to lead the line for Manchester United when they face Barcelona in the first leg of the Europa League knock-out play-off on Thursday evening.

The Red Devils travel to the Camp Nou for the opening leg of the European contest and it could be a difficult challenge with the Blaugrana in excellent form.

Hence, they will need to be at their best and in our opinion, manager Erik ten Hag should choose to lead the attack with Rashford instead of Wout Weghorst.

With Anthony Martial injured, January signing Weghorst has been the regular up front in recent weeks, but he has looked largely ineffective from the role.

Against Leeds United yesterday, he barely influenced the game until he moved into the second striker position to support Rashford in the closing stages.

For the second game running, Rashford found the net with a header after switching to the centre-forward role. Ten Hag must stick with him from the position.

Rashford, who has been described as ‘unstoppable‘ by Ten Hag this term, has been in the form of his life since the season restart after the World Cup final.

He has more goal contributions than any other player in Europe’s top-five leagues and bagged his 21st goal of the campaign in the hard-fought win at Leeds.

United were not defensively sound against the Whites. Harry Maguire was far from impressive at the heart of the backline and should be replaced by Raphael Varane.

With Lisandro Martinez serving a one-game European suspension, Luke Shaw should continue in the left centre-back role after getting another trial at Elland Road.

Stats from Transfermarkt.com