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2016-17 Performances


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dirkey

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Because that's how you judge a player.
Exactly. And for the most part, Martial hasn't been good this year. Thus he's battled with his place, time and again, against the likes of Lingard and Rashford. Who also haven't set the world alight. And they've had slightly more game time, mainly based upon the fact they're carrying out the instructions of the manager more the way he likes it. Now though, if he shows the same work rate as he did the other day, I expect we'll see more of him, even if he isn't playing fantastically.
 

Santoryo

ripping the reward
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There's definitely an element of well, Mourinho has implied it so it must be true on here right now. Whether it be Mkhitaryan, Shaw, Martial, now both Smalling and Jones. Jones, in particular, has never had a bad word said about him by any manager he's worked under. Infact, when fit, they've often done their best to get him straight back into the team.

Yet Mourinho makes yet another needless remark about fitness and all of a sudden there's suggestions on this forum that they're both softies. Uncommitted and stealing a living for too long, or something.

I can't subscribe to Martial being actively lazy or uncommitted. He clearly ran more on Sunday, but how much of that is to do with the position he was played? No doubt Mourinho knows how to motivate squads; he's made a career by doing so. But every insinuation that is made isn't necessarily as sinister as conveyed, and some (even his biggest supporters) would do well to remember that.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. These aren't Balotellis running around with previous bad histories about their commitments and attitudes, these are stand out players attitude wise as shown with their disciplinary history.

None of Martial, Shaw, Miki, Smalling or Jones were even hinted on having mental, disciplinary or commital issues, not even rumoured. But all of a sudden we're to believe they're softies, lazy, not commited, etc.

People quickly taking Mou's words and giving it the benefit of the doubt while suddenly turning on players whom just as early as last year were prarising and waxing lyricals over(Martial, Smalling, Shaw).

And it's quite ironic how the benefit of the doubt is given to Mou who happen to have an actual history of mishandling talented and young players while the various players under fire themselves weren't known for any of the negative suddenly being labeled about them.

The way fans on these boards suddenly turned on the likes of Martial, Shaw and Smalling after hearing Mou throwing public jabs at them has been quite astounding.
 

dirkey

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This is exactly what I'm talking about. These aren't Balotellis running around with previous bad histories about their commitments and attitudes, these are stand out players attitude wise as shown with their disciplinary history.

None of Martial, Shaw, Miki, Smalling or Jones were even hinted on having mental, disciplinary or commital issues, not even rumoured. But all of a sudden we're to believe they're softies, lazy, not commited, etc.

People quickly taking Mou's words and giving it the benefit of the doubt while suddenly turning on players whom just as early as last year were prarising and waxing lyricals over(Martial, Smalling, Shaw).

And it's quite ironic how the benefit of the doubt is given to Mou who happen to have an actual history of mishandling talented and young players while the various players under fire themselves weren't known for any of the negative suddenly being labeled about them.

The way fans on these boards suddenly turned on the likes of Martial, Shaw and Smalling after hearing Mou throwing public jabs at them has been quite astounding.
Shaw - didn't every manager of his talk about his attitude / commitment to training? Think it's pretty well documented, let alone rumoured.
Miki - Don't think isuses with regard to what you mention, but think again, well documented issues of struggling to settle in during first season.
Smalling & Jones - I'm pretty sure there was a thread here last season about how one gets injured every time the other is back, and how they'll never play together etc.
 

Dobbs

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Exactly. And for the most part, Martial hasn't been good this year. Thus he's battled with his place, time and again, against the likes of Lingard and Rashford. Who also haven't set the world alight. And they've had slightly more game time, mainly based upon the fact they're carrying out the instructions of the manager more the way he likes it. Now though, if he shows the same work rate as he did the other day, I expect we'll see more of him, even if he isn't playing fantastically.
Agree with that, I'm not really debating his performances in this instance. More how some posters decide Mourinho's approach has worked when as you say he hasn't been good.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
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The way Martial has been this season, with so many ins and outs, little niggles etc, i'd be wrapping him in absolute cotton wool until Thursday, to make sure he's actually fit for starters!
 

Dobbs

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Which haven't been good? Therefore he hasn't been playing?

You've complained about him not being played into form like other players and I've said it's because his attitude isn't at the same level other players.

It's not down to "one good performance" as you are constantly alluding to, it's about his change in attitude in that one game. As I said in the very post you just responded to, if the attitude is right, he gets the trust of the manager, he gets praise, he gets games. It's not a complicated process I'm outlining here.
Yeah you don't need to keep explaining how a good attitude leads to chances. That's a given.

The whole debate here is does Martials supposed bad attitidue warrant the treatment he's received and has that treatment worked.

Same goes for Mkhi, Shaw and whoever else Jose singles out.
 

ivaldo

Mediocre Horse Whisperer, s'up wid chew?
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Yeah you don't need to keep explaining how a good attitude leads to chances. That's a given.

The whole debate here is does Martials supposed bad attitidue warrant the treatment he's received and has that treatment worked.

Same goes for Mkhi, Shaw and whoever else Jose singles out.
So then why are you insisting my conclusion of this approach working is down to "one good performance"? Im trying to keep it focused on attitude, you keep pulling it away.
 

Dobbs

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So then why are you insisting my conclusion of this approach working is down to "one good performance"? Im trying to keep it focused on attitude, you keep pulling it away.
You're getting all abstract now by separating performance and attitude. Over complicating the issue for me. Decent debate this but i'll take a break at this point until we see his next game or two.
 

ivaldo

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You're getting all abstract now by separating performance and attitude. Over complicating the issue for me. Decent debate this but i'll take a break at this point until we see his next game or two.
It's a necessary separation to make as Martial is constantly being compared to players like Lingard, Ibra and Pogba who have also had sustained periods of underperforming. Half a dozen posts above this one you have told another poster you don't want to discuss performance.
Agree with that, I'm not really debating his performances in this instance. More how some posters decide Mourinho's approach has worked when as you say he hasn't been good.
As I've said, the overriding issue for Mourinho is attitude not performance, it's the sole reason Mourinho has taken this "tough love" approach.
 

meninred

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Play both in the middle..the new - york /cole combination. Never saw Mouriniho playing two strikers before though.
 

JPRouve

can't stop thinking about balls - NOT deflategate
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Even at Inter Eto'o was more of an inverted winger while Milito was playing in the middle. It certainly wasn't your 2 strikers up front.
He played with Adriano and Ibrahimovic. Also Eto'o and Milito weren't always used wide.
 

Home&Away

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So he runs more in a position which requires less running because it's his prefered positon and you don't see that as evidence of an attitude/commitment problem?
Wow.
No I don't see it as an attitude problem.

1) Martial played LW all of this season. This means he has one channel to run across. He runs up and down the left channel whilst knowing if he is out of position- the opponents will target the left hand side he is on. This isn't even counting the fact that we haven't had a solid LB because of injury/ commitment problem of others?

2) He played striker - he suddenly has 3 flanks to cross from central positions; left,right and centre with runs he can freely make in behind the defence, pressure on central defenders and falling in deep knowing that as a striker - his lack of defensive capability doesn't effect the rest of the team. Of course he is going to run more because that position allows him to do so.

3) Martial not only has more channels to run through, he is also much better dribbler from the central position because he has more planes to cross. This means he has more successful dribbles - possibly leading to even more runs due to confidence.

4) Lastly and following up on on the last point is confidence again. He is young and he knows his own position well enough to know which runs to make, when to apply pressure and when to leave things alone. Expecting him to do the same at Lw as ST is like asking a person who rides a bycicle to ride a motorbike. He simply isn't all that good with it.

That is why on the one game he played centrally he made more runs and had a goal and assist to his name. You could literally see the frustration in his face and the relief in his face after a good outing.

If you are adamant it's down to some mental health problem then fine. It's just too much of a coincidence to me that his best outing came in his best position.
 
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Not sure why people want to lock Rashford and Martial down into specific positions. Why not allow for some flexibility? The best modern strikers roam a lot in the forward positions these days. They can drift from wide as much as they can strike from the center. Griezmann is a good example. Simeone recently talked about how it is a bit difficult pinning him down to a position because he can attack from different angles. Same can be said about Henry, Ronaldo, Messi, etc.

This is exactly why I like the way Rashford has been played this season and he attested to it himself when he spoke about the merits of having to play from wide many times. He said his play is now more mature and balanced as a result.
True. There's no doubt that Rashford, Martial (and Griezmann) are more dangerous when they have freedom to roam. I suppose I felt that Martial is more likely to score consistently from the left side. But your ideas have definitely been taken on board.
 

KM

I’m afraid I just blue myself
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I don't get this place. After years of complaining about players taking their places for granted and managers having their favorites(captain always plays), We've got a manager who's finally willing to do that and yet we are here still complaining about itm
 

ivaldo

Mediocre Horse Whisperer, s'up wid chew?
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No I don't see it as an attitude problem.

1) Martial played LW all of this season. This means he has one channel to run across. He runs up and down the left channel whilst knowing if he is out of position- the opponents will target the left hand side he is on. This isn't even counting the fact that we haven't had a solid LB because of injury/ commitment problem of others?

2) He played striker - he suddenly has 3 flanks to cross from central positions; left,right and centre with runs he can freely make in behind the defence, pressure on central defenders and falling in deep knowing that as a striker - his lack of defensive capability doesn't effect the rest of the team. Of course he is going to run more because that position allows him to do so.

3) Martial not only has more channels to run through, he is also much better dribbler from the central position because he has more planes to cross. This means he has more successful dribbles - possibly leading to even more runs due to confidence.

4) Lastly and following up on on the last point is confidence again. He is young and he knows his own position well enough to know which runs to make, when to apply pressure and when to leave things alone. Expecting him to do the same at Lw as ST is like asking a person who rides a bycicle to ride a motorbike. He simply isn't all that good with it.

That is why on the one game he played centrally he made more runs and had a goal and assist to his name. You could literally see the frustration in his face and the relief in his face after a good outing.

If you are adamant it's down to some mental health problem then fine. It's just too much of a coincidence to me that his best outing came in his best position.
That's great. You can try to sugar-coat it all you like, his workrate out wide was poor. There's a very simple way to analysis it, look at the other players who have played there and see how much they work for the team out there. Crazy that Rashford didn't suddenly become incapable of working hard when he played out wide. You know as well as I do, particularly in a Mourinho side, the wide players work harder than the striker.

There's a myriad of articles stating Jose isn't happy with Martials attitude, along with several instances where we have been able to witness it ourselves. Neville alluded to it as far back as November, and French journalists cited it as the reason why he isn't see much game time at Euro 2016. Not to mention Jose coming out on more than one occasion and discussing it in public. Why are you shoving your fingers in your ears to all this?
 
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Art

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I don't get this place. After years of complaining about players taking their places for granted and managers having their favorites(captain always plays), We've got a manager who's finally willing to do that and yet we are here still complaining about itm
It's because posters are insecure about talented youngsters leaving us. Silly I know.
 

Dobbs

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I don't get this place. After years of complaining about players taking their places for granted and managers having their favorites(captain always plays), We've got a manager who's finally willing to do that and yet we are here still complaining about itm
We had a manager last year who dropped players most us thought should be playing. LvG and Herrera.
 

ti vu

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We had a manager last year who dropped players most us thought should be playing. LvG and Herrera.
You just highlight @KM point: "captain always plays" even in midfield over natural midfielder
 

Womp

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I've got a feeling that for that kind of money Jose might drive him to Lyon himself :nervous:
Does Lyon even have the resources to table bids in that region? Agree though, I don't see the club rejecting 85 million for Martial.
 

MadMike

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Does Lyon even have the resources to table bids in that region? Agree though, I don't see the club rejecting 85 million for Martial.
Well those would be euros which would be £70m. Still it's an incredible amount of money and 30m profit on what we paid for him so far. I got the feeling Jose would go and buy someone for half the money but who is closer to the finished product and more mature.

Who knows how much money Lyon have. They just paid 20m for Depay right? They 've had a shite domestic season (5th atm) but have had a good run Europe and likely to be in the final of EL hopefully against us. If they get CL, who knows. They might have made enough money for one big transfer. Though that would probably be their entire budget.

Chances ofc are that it's bollox and Lyon end up in EL again next season.
 

kouroux

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This is exactly what I'm talking about. These aren't Balotellis running around with previous bad histories about their commitments and attitudes, these are stand out players attitude wise as shown with their disciplinary history.

None of Martial, Shaw, Miki, Smalling or Jones were even hinted on having mental, disciplinary or commital issues, not even rumoured. But all of a sudden we're to believe they're softies, lazy, not commited, etc.

People quickly taking Mou's words and giving it the benefit of the doubt while suddenly turning on players whom just as early as last year were prarising and waxing lyricals over(Martial, Smalling, Shaw).

And it's quite ironic how the benefit of the doubt is given to Mou who happen to have an actual history of mishandling talented and young players while the various players under fire themselves weren't known for any of the negative suddenly being labeled about them.

The way fans on these boards suddenly turned on the likes of Martial, Shaw and Smalling after hearing Mou throwing public jabs at them has been quite astounding.
Martial did, @JPRouve talked about it many times on the caf.
 

Adisa

likes to take afvanadva wothowi doubt
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Don't know how many times he will have to say he's not leaving. Must have said it about 3 times this year alone.
 

roonster09

Hercule Poirot of the scouting world
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Interesting stats: (don't want to tempt the fate before today's game still)

Martial - 4 goals and 5 assists in 1074 mins
Sane - 5 goals and 1 assist in 1341 mins.

Sane was nominated for young player of the year and so much is talked about him while we have ManUtd fans questioning Martial's quality/mentality.
 

SachinJ22

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Won't happen....No one is spending that much on Martial.
It might happen, Martial has the talent to be one of the best players in the world. If Jose fails to realize that and motivate him, we will lose him to some other teams and he will play for that team like a world class player while we will have Lingard playing on the wings just because he works hard.
 

Aza Boy

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Martial and Rashford, both of them just a child in current world of football...they are not fully developed. Inconsistency is their friend. Technically and Mentally, they must apply a spirit within theirs to improve.

However, the guidance from senior players is needed. In this case, based on theory only, the task should be done buy one of Rooney or Ibrahimovic. Sharing the knowledge of the game and the mentality, the risk, the benefit, and so on. But that's only a theory, because we are not in CM/FM game.

All players hired expected to become an adult both as a player and as a human....and it is not easy specifically for young player like Martial and Rashford.

Like I said in other thread, Martial will come good, not a world beater a la Henry, Ribery, or Benzema, but will be better than Ben Arfa, NAsri, and Valbuena...If...his head and his heart always wide open for improvements (including Critic).

Just my 2 cents.
 

SachinJ22

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Interesting stats: (don't want to tempt the fate before today's game still)

Martial - 4 goals and 5 assists in 1074 mins
Sane - 5 goals and 1 assist in 1341 mins.

Sane was nominated for young player of the year and so much is talked about him while we have ManUtd fans questioning Martial's quality/mentality.
People tend to forget that Martial is still young, they are expecting him to perform like Kane or Aguero. Martial has been dropped whenever he has a bad game, he is not being played in this main position which is as a striker, has been criticized in public, his number was taken and given to Ibra, average players like Lingard and Fellaini are picked every game, other players are given frequent chances even though they play badly in some games. All these things can have an effect on any player's confidence, he might be even demotivated to the extent where he doesn't want to give his 100% even in training. I'm not saying he should be treated like a child by Jose, some players need motivation and Jose has to find some way to motivate him. Martial is a future star IMO like Belloti, Mbappe, Dembele etc and it will be a big mistake if we lose him to some other team.
 

Hellboy

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People tend to forget that Martial is still young, they are expecting him to perform like Kane or Aguero. Martial has been dropped whenever he has a bad game, he is not being played in this main position which is as a striker, has been criticized in public, his number was taken and given to Ibra, average players like Lingard and Fellaini are picked every game, other players are given frequent chances even though they play badly in some games. All these things can have an effect on any player's confidence, he might be even demotivated to the extent where he doesn't want to give his 100% even in training. I'm not saying he should be treated like a child by Jose, some players need motivation and Jose has to find some way to motivate him. Martial is a future star IMO like Belloti, Mbappe, Dembele etc and it will be a big mistake if we lose him to some other team.
There is a difference between playing bad and playing bad with a questionnable attitude. Martial's shoulders dropped too often when things didn't go this way this season.
 

arthurka

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Interesting stats: (don't want to tempt the fate before today's game still)

Martial - 4 goals and 5 assists in 1074 mins
Sane - 5 goals and 1 assist in 1341 mins.

Sane was nominated for young player of the year and so much is talked about him while we have ManUtd fans questioning Martial's quality/mentality.
Sane is 25 how the feck does that work?
 

Stacks

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Agree with that, I'm not really debating his performances in this instance. More how some posters decide Mourinho's approach has worked when as you say he hasn't been good.
I know what you mean. its as if people believe it has miraculously worked at the very moment that Zlatan is injured and Martial is forced to be the main striker and main man in our team again.
 

Stacks

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There is a difference between playing bad and playing bad with a questionable attitude. Martial's shoulders dropped too often when things didn't go this way this season.
Its easy and natural for players to get frustrated, particularly young players. especially those who have had the rug pulled from underneath them. Perhaps he hasn't matured yet as he is only 21 years old, maybe he is another "Le Sulk"
 
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