Marcus Rashford goals show stark contrast playing at Aston Villa | OneFootball

A lot of positives happened during the Aston Villa 3-0 win over Preston North End. The expression 'when it rains, it pours' could be applied to the most talked-about aspect of the FA Cup victory. Marcus Rashford found the back of the net twice. As anyone would want to see from an attacker, particularly in the second set of 45 minutes, he created issues for the PNE defense and was then doubly rewarded.

Oftentimes, it only takes a forward seeing the ball go in the back of the net to regain the needed confidence and become a consistent production machine. The reverse, of course, can also be true. At Manchester United, the changes under Ruben Amorim have not translated into success for Rashford.

The poor run of form has since reversed under Unai Emery, however. On Sunday, the England international grabbed a goal during the build-up of play and then managed to calmly convert his penalty. Scoring from the spot isn't necessarily a sign of his reversal of fortune. After all, the advantage is decisively with the PK taker.

How he stepped up and coolly passed it in without looking is the take of a confident, in form player. His ability to create chances for himself and others now with Villa is a major reason many expect Monchi to secure the forward from United. Some claim that the asking price could keep increasing. At the same time, however, he has only looked like a top player since coming to AVFC on loan. That aspect remains to be seen. It's clear that Emery would automatically wish to include Rashford on the 2025-2026 roster if that were possible.

Stat for the Aston Villa defender

Known journalist Henry Winter made an interesting point that he shared on X. Between his parent club and Villa, Rashford had a 15-game span between goals, or 119 days. Sunday against PNE, the time between his first and second goals was only five minutes.

He will not want to go double-digit matches without scoring again. The way he is playing at the moment, though, that isn't likely to happen again. With a slew of important games around the corner, Aston Villa will hope that his scoring becomes something of a common occurrence.