Solskjaer insists Rashford will be "a top, top number nine" for Man United

The Norwegian said: “He gets kicked and he gets tackled, he goes for headers, he wins, he challenges, he runs – he is going to be a top, top number nine, definitely.

“But then again, we’ve got Rom, so sometimes he’ll play on the right, sometimes on the left, sometimes through the middle. He’ll get enough games.”

Solskjaer’s delight was in stark contrast to the mood of opposite number Rafael Benitez, who saw all his team’s hard work ultimately count for nothing as a result of errors.

Benitez said: “On these kind of nights, you have to be disappointed in the way that you lost because if the other team is doing really well, much better than you, you say ‘Fair enough, that’s it’.

“But we were doing enough to deserve something more. We made a mistake and conceded the first goal and after when we were doing better, we conceded the second goal from a counter-attack.

“For 85 minutes, we deserved something more than just to lose the way that we lost. The message is clear and consistent: in the final third, the accuracy of the final pass, the assist, the final decisions, that is the key if you want to score more goals.”