In 2017, Phil Neville Claimed England Teen Could Be As Good As Mbappe & Dembele

In the modern game, Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele are two of the most exciting players on the planet. With one Frenchman at Real Madrid and the other at Paris Saint-Germain, the pair have been in blistering form across 2024/25.

In his debut season in Spain, Mbappe has netted 35 goals. Dembele has been operating at a similar level, with 33 goals under his best for PSG in all competitions this term. As such, both men are in the hunt for the 2025 Ballon d’Or.

Their talent is nothing new, of course. After all, the pair have long been touted as two of the most exciting players on the planet. In 2017, for example, Dembele had already sealed a £115m move from Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona. Mbappe had also agreed an initial loan move from Monaco to PSG, which would become permanent for a pre-agreed £153m fee.

In short, they have been seen as among the most exciting players in the game for nearly a decade now. However, in this period, Phil Neville claimed a certain English youngster deserved to receive just as much hype.

Phil Neville Backed Marcus Rashford to Reach the Top

“Everybody praises Ousmane Dembele and Kylian Mbappe but nobody talks about Rashford”

Neville was talking about a 19-year-old Marcus Rashford. The Manchester United academy graduate had broken into the first team in 2016, scoring first in his Europa League debut, before then grabbing another brace just three days later on his Premier League debut against Arsenal.

By September of 2017, excitement around the English teenager was pretty big, but Neville felt that he wasn’t spoken about enough and deserved to be held in the same regard as Dembele and Mbappe. He explained:

Neville would add: “He broke in under Louis van Gaal and set the world on fire, in his second season under Jose Mourinho everyone thought he wouldn’t play but he did in all the big games. Now he is adding goals to his game and he can be absolutely world class.”

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After previously tearing into the player, Neville might have changed his tune now 👀

Rashford Has Struggled in Recent Years

Mbappe and Dembele have proven themselves at the top

It seems somewhat odd for Neville to suggest people weren’t talking about Rashford. After bursting onto the scene at a club level, he made his debut for England in 2016. Still only 18 by that stage, he became the youngest Englishman to score on his international debut, netting in a 2-1 win over Australia.

And for a while, the winger continued to shine for both club and country, but his fortunes have faded more recently. While Mbappe and Dembele are possible Ballon d’Or candidates, Rashford has not been in such conversations for a while now.

His last elite goalscoring season came in 2022/23 when he bagged 30 goals across all competitions for the Red Devils. Instability at club level seems to have derailed him, as he scored just eight goals the following campaign.

In 2024/25, he was clearly not fancied by new manager Ruben Amorim and was subsequently loaned out to Aston Villa. He has shown glimpses of his quality in the months since, but his long-term future is anything from certain.

The latest news is that he could leave Old Trafford permanently in the summer, with the dream of joining Barcelona. Now very much behind Mbappe and Dembele in the pecking order of great European wingers, it remains to be seen if the Spanish giants would consider Rashford a sensible target.

Stats via SofaScore and Transfermarkt – correct as of 05/05/25