Absolutely agreed. You make the best posts regarding Martial and his positioning. Even that goal agaijst Liverpool he wasnt coming off the touchline. He was the furthest forward as striker but drifting out the left. I also read this when we signined him from Monaco hes forward that likes to drift to the left and attack space between the fullback and centre back from an angle - not from standing start on the touchline. Yet despite not playing in his preffered positon hes still showed enough to keep the spot that it can only bode well for the future.
It's just very irritating to speak out something so obvious consistently.
As I say - Rashford last year was good as gone because he failed as a winger under peoples eyes - couldnt take on his man properly, wasnt crossing well, wasnt scoring - the only thing he had last year was a top work rate.
The thing is Martial is not just random anomaly who plays as a LF that drifts out on the counter & wants to take on the space between the RB and RCB.
Would Thierry Henry work as our LW? would Saido Mane work as our LW trying to beat the RB with the ball at his feet as the attacking move he has to repeat with every attack?
They wouldn't because even though they can dribble; their ability to beat a man on the outside channel of the marking RB is not as good as their ability to play inbetween the RB and RCB.
I also think - ever since C Ronaldo left us - the fans are desperate for a winger who plays like him - this magical winger who with us could in a skillfull manner take the fullback on from the inside or outside - taking a shot or whipping a cross in for the striker. like RVN, Rooney or Tevez. That isnt going to happen with Martial & even if he could - players like Rashford & lingard are not going to benefit from that type of play.
Rashford, Lingard, Martial & even Greenwood are players that are going to benefit from interchanging positions, making short passes & spaces for each other before one of them becomes free to take on a defender or take a shot at goal. Look at the goal vs cardiff.
Look at how close Rashford, Lingard & Martial are - their fullbacks are irrelevant; and the centre of defence has to deal with three attackers than can interchange positions - usually a skillfull dribble away from being one on one with the goalkeeper.
They need to be close together so that the defence are overloaded and get stretched when the ball is at their feet. When Martial starts as a LW - he starts off too wide, the defence have marked him out as wide as possible with their fullback even before he has recieved the ball. The defence is in the ideal positions to not only mark martial out the game but are lined up with 2 defenders focusing purely on Rashford whilst Lingard plays as RW who again does a minimal job against their LB.
Rashford is rubbish at RW, LW because he struggles to take on the fullbacks and even if he does beat him - is covered by their CB who has marked the fullbacks weakspots leading to Rashford being pushed out wide than being in a position where he can score a goal. In my opinion martial plays almost the same way as Rashford does but just happens to be marginally more skillful; he gets marked out by a fullback; even if he beets them gets covered by a CB.
Look at Rashford position here - is in between the widest fullback and the RCB; one of their defenders are completely out of marking Rashford meaning that their RCB is directly the first opposition Rashford faces. He takes him on, beats him and finds himself right in front of goal to take a shot and score.
Martial is no different.
