Manchester United’s Jadon Sancho is heading ‘in the right direction’ after his display against Leicester – Erik ten Hag

The win, which saw two goals from Marcus Rashford and one from Sancho, took United just three points behind Manchester City in the Premier League table.

Sancho, who recently spent time training away from the first-team squad, has now scored two goals in three league games.

“He is in the right direction. He does not know his limits and there’s a lot of space for improvement, though already he is at a high level,” Ten Hag said on Sancho after the match.

Rashford has also been in fine form for United, with his brace taking his goal tally to 24 in all competitions this season.

“The team is putting Rashford in the right positions, especially Bruno [Fernandes], he creates how many passes, he gives behind, he crosses in. Not only Bruno, but I think he is doing a great job.

“We need all players in form, but we have to follow the principles of our way of play and if we do that, we can play very well.”

When asked about being in the title race, the Dutchman said: “We don’t think about that, we think about tomorrow, we have to be a better version of ourselves and that is what we have to work for. We are in February, don’t look far ahead.”

Rashford echoed his manager’s statement, saying: “We’re close, but both teams in front of us [Arsenal and Manchester City] are good teams and playing good football. We have to just focus on ourselves, do as well as we can and keep picking up points.

“It’s still early in the season, we’re fighting for a lot of different things, and we have another big game in the week to hopefully go through to the next round of the Europa League and then a massive game for us [against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final].

“I don’t feel like slowing down and always want to improve.”

Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers also spoke after the loss, saying: “The chances were there but we just couldn’t quite put them away. Sometimes that’s the way it goes for you.

“We have shown that we have got our goal-scoring and creativity back from the last two games.

“Today it just wasn’t to be but we created chances and if we could have taken one or two of those in the first half, it would have been a different game.”