Anthony Martial

I dont see why being selfish or not is the problem.

The problem is not to do by themselves- it's the way there are set up.

Martial is the most creative forward we have. Whilst his finishing is refined - he isnt predatory.

Martial should be playing behind a partnership of Rashford and Greenwood, players that are able to play out wide when needed and Narrow when needed in a predatory partnership.

Martial always reminds me of a false 9 player because he drops deeper than anyone to get the ball his feet, can hold on to the ball, turn and dribble before having the rest of the forwards making a run off of him where he decides whether to pass or go on a dribble by himself to take the defenders on and shoot.

The selfishness of lack of it is more due to to our strikers not being set up 100% accurately, even if Ole has improved them.

acnumber9 said:

No need. Just look back at your posts about guaranteeing he’d pass every time somebody is in a better position than him.

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So having been thoroughly beaten in logical arguments you now resorting to lies and falsehoods, that should be beneath you

I said; "I can guarantee that Martial would have passed in one of those two scenarios"

So how's that the same as what you said, Donald Trump must be taking lessons from you.

To be honest, I'm done with this argument as neither side is willing to budge an inch, let's just agree to disagree

yfoFC said:

So having been thoroughly beaten in logical arguments you now resorting to lies and falsehoods, that should be beneath you

I said; "I can guarantee that Martial would have passed in one of those two scenarios"

So how's that the same as what you said, Donald Trump must be taking lessons from you.

To be honest, I'm done with this argument as neither side is willing to budge an inch, let's just agree to disagree

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And how are you guaranteeing it? There’s nothing logical about anything you’ve said. Take your blinkers off.

He's selfish sometimes like against Southampton but more often he seems to want to walk the ball into the net like this incident

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Only positive today in the whole game was at least he found the back of the net and took his chance very well.

Will say with all that's been said about his ability to draw fouls he does seem to give quite a few away.

Very good header for the goal. Invisible for the rest of the match though.

Seems to take an age to get the ball out of his feet which probably explains the number of fouls he wins.

OL29 said:

Seems to take an age to get the ball out of his feet which probably explains the number of fouls he wins.

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Martial is isolated most of the time so he takes time to get our laboured attack into position. Both Martial and Rashford would destroy teams if they have any support from Midfield. Our midfielders are basically bunch of clueless joker who play sideways passes and then hit impossible through balls to our striker.

el3mel said:

Very good header for the goal. Invisible for the rest of the match though.

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Yeah, he wasn't great. He's not a #9. I would just like to see him work his socks off, it's not like he's tired with the week between games at this point.

Gone back to his “I can’t be bothered to do my job as a Center forward” phase. I’d be starting Cavani every game at the moment if Martials gonna strop again.

He was one of our better players despite not getting involved enough.

Leroy The Red said:

Gone back to his “I can’t be bothered to do my job as a Center forward” phase. I’d be starting Cavani every game at the moment if Martials gonna strop again.

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Cavani was significantly worse when he came on.

He isnt suited to play in a striker partnership like that. He decides what to do with the ball by first getting it to his feet hardly before it.

He needs to play deeper behind a striker partnership.

MadDogg said:

He was one of our better players despite not getting involved enough.


Cavani was significantly worse when he came on.

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Cavani actually made centre forward movements. Quite important as a Center forward to not just stand still.

Leroy The Red said:

Gone back to his “I can’t be bothered to do my job as a Center forward” phase. I’d be starting Cavani every game at the moment if Martials gonna strop again.

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His bottom level is really low one must say. Here I say it again, he's a very good player and class on his day but too inconsistent and not mentally up for it to take his game to another level. Can't believe that a palyer of his built shows so little strength and cover the ball properly in many situations, can't make easy 4m pass etc. Can't blame him for his playmaking, he will try but some basic work with ball is down to his sheer lazyness. He's got this complex and so has Rashford sometimes that he thinks he can play football at 80% speed with his thought and physically and he can still make it. A player of top quality can't switch off this much.

Focus and hardwork are very underrated qualities..

Scholes rightly criticizing him for his walking around on the pitch. Cant blame him too much as the whole team is just disjointed and consistently lack ideas.

I heard Scholes was blaming him for tonight as he wants of the £100M white boys brought in, utter joke, got one chance and took it, held the ball up and won free kicks, to me him, Van de Beek and Shaw are the only players who can say they offered us anything tonight.

Devil may care said:

I heard Scholes was blaming him for tonight as he wants of the £100M white boys brought in, utter joke, got one chance and took it, held the ball up and won free kicks, to me him, Van de Beek and Shaw are the only players who can say they offered us anything tonight.

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Bringing race into it is ridiculous.

It's not like the whole team is pressing.

For some reason we used to press as a team last season and Martial was fine. Now no one is pressing unless it's to pressure the goalkeeper to make a pass our rather than wasiting time.

Devil may care said:

I heard Scholes was blaming him for tonight as he wants of the £100M white boys brought in, utter joke, got one chance and took it, held the ball up and won free kicks, to me him, Van de Beek and Shaw are the only players who can say they offered us anything tonight.

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He got sent off against Spurs for a stupid reaction (Lamela a lot worse, but you've got to keep your head) and as a result he has a huge rest between matches. He should be working a lot harder. Scholes was right about him not making enough runs. Then on the few occasions we had a decent cross, positionally, we didn't have a #9. That goal was good, but overall he was invisible. I know some players had a bad game, but they weren't invisible.

He's a fantastic talent, but his work rate isn't great and his body language is the polar opposite of Fernandes or VdB, where they just keep going. There was a chance scuppered and Martial was looking disappointed while VdB was reacting to win the ball back, and only then Martial woke up. He needs to be a lot more determined to play to the level he's capable of.

edit: and yes, bringing race into this is absurd.

Bwuk said:

Bringing race into it is ridiculous.

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I'm white, it's impossible to ignore the disproportionate criticism of Martial and Pogba in comparison to the likes of Maguire, McTominay and Bruno.

Bastian said:

He got sent off against Spurs for a stupid reaction (Lamela a lot worse, but you've got to keep your head) and as a result he has a huge rest between matches. He should be working a lot harder. Scholes was right about him not making enough runs. Then on the few occasions we had a decent cross, positionally, we didn't have a #9. That goal was good, but overall he was invisible. I know some players had a bad game, but they weren't invisible.

He's a fantastic talent, but his work rate isn't great and his body language is the polar opposite of Fernandes or VdB, where they just keep going. There was a chance scuppered and Martial was looking disappointed while VdB was reacting to win the ball back, and only then Martial woke up. He needs to be a lot more determined to play to the level he's capable of.

edit: and yes, bringing race into this is absurd.

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The body language and hard work stuff is just generic shit to me, it's used to excuse some players and bury others, Martial isn't being asked to make runs, he's there as the attacking pivot, Scholes wants a 35 goal a season fox in the box RvN as that's what he had back in the day, the game has changed, Martial doesn't run around like his arse is on fire, it doesn't mean he isn't working.

It's not absurd to aknowledge the difference in how him and Pogba are treat by the British pundits.

Devil may care said:

The body language and hard work stuff is just generic shit to me, it's used to excuse some players and bury others, Martial isn't being asked to make runs, he's there as the attacking pivot, Scholes wants a 35 goal a season fox in the box RvN as that's what he had back in the day, the game has changed, Martial doesn't run around like his arse is on fire, it doesn't mean he isn't working.

It's not absurd to aknowledge the difference in how him and Pogba are treat by the British pundits.

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If you've decided beforehand that it's bs, then there's no argument to be had. But I'll still try. Because you want to bring race into it, I see Rashford making loads of runs every single game, also busting a gut to get back when he can help the team out, most of the time his runs aren't rewarded by his teammates being alert to it but often it creates space to exploit (which isn't exploited often enough - general problem with movement). You could say that's his job, and you'd be right.

Martial who is the number 9 now, is not supposed to make runs, not supposed to continually try to get on the end of things, but just supposed to drop deep and keep the ball moving and try to circulate the ball waiting for an intricate needling from outside the box through short passing resulting either in a pen or a goal? I mean, that too, from time to time, but by and large, he needs to be the presence in the box. He's not though, not nearly enough. Attacking pivot, what does that mean to you? Just shielding the ball in the build up and hope he can retain possession for us?

Ole was a striker. He's said time and again that he wants his team to work harder than the opponent, and he wants his strikers to break their nose to score a goal, that means to give everything. Do you feel he does that?

Bastian said:

If you've decided beforehand that it's bs, then there's no argument to be had. But I'll still try. Because you want to bring race into it, I see Rashford making loads of runs every single game, also busting a gut to get back when he can help the team out, most of the time his runs aren't rewarded by his teammates being alert to it but often it creates space to exploit (which isn't exploited often enough - general problem with movement). You could say that's his job, and you'd be right.

Martial who is the number 9 now, is not supposed to make runs, not supposed to continually try to get on the end of things, but just supposed to drop deep and keep the ball moving and try to circulate the ball waiting for an intricate needling from outside the box through short passing resulting either in a pen or a goal? I mean, that too, from time to time, but by and large, he needs to be the presence in the box. He's not though, not nearly enough. Attacking pivot, what does that mean to you? Just shielding the ball in the build up and hope he can retain possession for us?

Ole was a striker. He's said time and again that he wants his team to work harder than the opponent, and he wants his strikers to break their nose to score a goal, that means to give everything. Do you feel he does that?

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Firstly I brought race into it not based on tonight alone, this has been an ongoing issue, everytime Scholes chats shit it's about Martial and Pogba, he rarely ever pulls up Maguire's continuous feckery and Bruno losing the ball over and over, now I know you cited Rashford but I wasn't saying the issue was from you specifically, it's the likes of Scholes, Neville, Souness, Murphy etc...the British TV pundits that always single out those 2 when things are going badly, Rashford gets a pass because he's English and an academy product and now a national treasure. We have so many issues but Scholes and Rooney have been blithering on about Kane and Haaland being what we need, it's ludicrously naive as neither are remotely signable, it's a bad joke.

I think Ole needs Martial to link things up because Bruno fires the pass off the second he gets the ball, sometimes you need to keep the ball and bring the team with you, our #10 isn't that type of player so Martial has the Firmino job within the make-up of this current team.

I feel he gives his all to the team, he doesn't break his neck to get on the end of things though, no, but as I said at the moment I feel he has a specific role, if I'm wrong then I'm sure Ole will drop him soon enough.

Devil may care said:

I heard Scholes was blaming him for tonight as he wants of the £100M white boys brought in, utter joke, got one chance and took it, held the ball up and won free kicks, to me him, Van de Beek and Shaw are the only players who can say they offered us anything tonight.

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Wow, OK. What?

Anyway, Martial is clearly a very talented footballer but the big problem for me is that he blows hot and cold, and when he's cold he hasn't the sort of personality to make up for it with hard work and graft. (Tevez, for example, used to be pretty inconsistent but irrespective he'd run his socks off and influence the game in other ways. Rooney too.)

Also some parallels to Berbatov in that his playstyle and attributes match what United aspire to be, but maybe he's not exactly what United need for results right now.

Devil may care said:

Firstly I brought race into it not based on tonight alone, this has been an ongoing issue, everytime Scholes chats shit it's about Martial and Pogba, he rarely ever pulls up Maguire's continuous feckery and Bruno losing the ball over and over, now I know you cited Rashford but I wasn't saying the issue was from you specifically, it's the likes of Scholes, Neville, Souness, Murphy etc...the British TV pundits that always single out those 2 when things are going badly, Rashford gets a pass because he's English and an academy product and now a national treasure. We have so many issues but Scholes and Rooney have been blithering on about Kane and Haaland being what we need, it's ludicrously naive as neither are remotely signable, it's a bad joke.

I think Ole needs Martial to link things up because Bruno fires the pass off the second he gets the ball, sometimes you need to keep the ball and bring the team with you, our #10 isn't that type of player so Martial has the Firmino job within the make-up of this current team.

I feel he gives his all to the team, he doesn't break his neck to get on the end of things though, no, but as I said at the moment I feel he has a specific role, if I'm wrong then I'm sure Ole will drop him soon enough.

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I don't think race has anything to do with Scholes' frustration with Martial and Pogba. The latter is for obvious reasons; lack of application, flirting with other clubs, not having the impact expected of him etc. Martial, it seems, is just a divisive player. People seem to rate him or not, probably most similar to Firmino in that sense. I don't tend to rate him but understand why others do but imagine Scholes feels the same as me.

Devil may care said:

Firstly I brought race into it not based on tonight alone, this has been an ongoing issue, everytime Scholes chats shit it's about Martial and Pogba, he rarely ever pulls up Maguire's continuous feckery and Bruno losing the ball over and over, now I know you cited Rashford but I wasn't saying the issue was from you specifically, it's the likes of Scholes, Neville, Souness, Murphy etc...the British TV pundits that always single out those 2 when things are going badly, Rashford gets a pass because he's English and an academy product and now a national treasure. We have so many issues but Scholes and Rooney have been blithering on about Kane and Haaland being what we need, it's ludicrously naive as neither are remotely signable, it's a bad joke.

I think Ole needs Martial to link things up because Bruno fires the pass off the second he gets the ball, sometimes you need to keep the ball and bring the team with you, our #10 isn't that type of player so Martial has the Firmino job within the make-up of this current team.

I feel he gives his all to the team, he doesn't break his neck to get on the end of things though, no, but as I said at the moment I feel he has a specific role, if I'm wrong then I'm sure Ole will drop him soon enough.

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OK. I'm not going to defend whatever all those pundits have been saying for a long while, I've not even followed it. But are those players immune from criticism because of this perceived injustice meted out by those pundits?

At the risk of jumping into that pit, I think we have some players who leave a lot to be desired in terms of work ethic. Those two are in that group, Shaw is there too, a white English player.

We have players who aren't good enough (Jones, Jesse, Pereira, James). We have players who have some tricky weaknesses (Lindelof, Maguire, AWB, Shaw, Fred, McTominay, Pogba, Martial, Mata, Matic, Bailly) and out of those I'd say the only weakness with Pogba, Martial and Shaw is attitude.
We have players who are always injured (Jones, Bailly, Rojo). And of course some very good players who don't have glaring weaknesses.

Jesse is English, but even though he's not good enough, he generally works hard for the team and same goes for Pereira and Fred. Bruno and Rashford are very good players but they also work hard, which helps them get better.

There may definitely be unfair criticism of Martial and Pogba, I'm not saying that, just that they deserve criticism when they don't give their all, as every single player would. And with them, I feel it's quite often (as has been the case with Shaw for a very long time). What makes it more frustrating is that their ceiling is very high. I am confident most who feel that way would feel that way regardless of any non-footballing random human attributes.

The guy is clearly a false 9.

For all the blame people put on him not making the runs behind the defence dont seem to see the runs he makes to drop deep to receive the ball to his feet.

Once he gets it in his feet away from the centre of defence he normally chooses whether to pass or go on a dribble.

No one has tried to utelise him like that when his strengths to me are clearly best suited for deeper from the box than within it.

Wait people are criticizing his effort? Ffs a week ago he was running around in the 80th minute like a madman. I'm so tired of him getting blamed for stupid shit, we didn't lose because of our forwards pressing. And he was easily the best of our attackers with winning fouls and actually looking like he might do something. Cavani hardly had a kick when he came on (not totally his fault because it's a broader issue in progressive play with us), and Rashford contributed nothing besides a few nice touches out wide.

If Cavani had started and given that exact performance (or some other new signing), people would be raving about how he was the only one to turn up and do his job, or praise how clinical he is because he got one look at goal and ruthlessly dispatched it.

VivaObertan said:

Wow, OK. What?

Anyway, Martial is clearly a very talented footballer but the big problem for me is that he blows hot and cold, and when he's cold he hasn't the sort of personality to make up for it with hard work and graft. (Tevez, for example, used to be pretty inconsistent but irrespective he'd run his socks off and influence the game in other ways. Rooney too.)

Also some parallels to Berbatov in that his playstyle and attributes match what United aspire to be, but maybe he's not exactly what United need for results right now.

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See I get this argument with regards to Pogba, I've seen him strolling back on occassions and it's frustrating, but I think people judge Martial on how he looks, and I don't mean his colour, I mean his facial expressions, he looks moody and tempremental, but his ground covered stats are not bad at all, he just doesn't go chasing after people like a rabid dog, he's never going to be that type of player, but it doesn't mean he isn't working for the team.

VivaObertan said:

I don't think race has anything to do with Scholes' frustration with Martial and Pogba. The latter is for obvious reasons; lack of application, flirting with other clubs, not having the impact expected of him etc. Martial, it seems, is just a divisive player. People seem to rate him or not, probably most similar to Firmino in that sense. I don't tend to rate him but understand why others do but imagine Scholes feels the same as me.

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Scholes is so oldschool it's like he was the class of '72 rather than '92, the best team in the PL doesn't use a traditional #9, there's more than one way to play, and if you don't think race is the issue then maybe you could argue it's a foreign player bias, but then he's always on Bruno's junk and he's Portuguese, yet he gives the ball away constantly, the complete opposite of Scholes mentality and it'salways "we need a proper #9, get Kane or Haaland" as if that is the glaring issue in this team, it's crazy to me, especiallytonight when he had one chance and scored it, compare that to the amount of chances created for other strikers at top clubs per game.

Bastian said:

OK. I'm not going to defend whatever all those pundits have been saying for a long while, I've not even followed it. But are those players immune from criticism because of this perceived injustice meted out by those pundits?

At the risk of jumping into that pit, I think we have some players who leave a lot to be desired in terms of work ethic. Those two are in that group, Shaw is there too, a white English player.

We have players who aren't good enough (Jones, Jesse, Pereira, James). We have players who have some tricky weaknesses (Lindelof, Maguire, AWB, Shaw, Fred, McTominay, Pogba, Martial, Mata, Matic, Bailly) and out of those I'd say the only weakness with Pogba, Martial and Shaw is attitude.
We have players who are always injured (Jones, Bailly, Rojo). And of course some very good players who don't have glaring weaknesses.

Jesse is English, but even though he's not good enough, he generally works hard for the team and same goes for Pereira and Fred. Bruno and Rashford are very good players but they also work hard, which helps them get better.

There may definitely be unfair criticism of Martial and Pogba, I'm not saying that, just that they deserve criticism when they don't give their all, as every single player would. And with them, I feel it's quite often (as has been the case with Shaw for a very long time). What makes it more frustrating is that their ceiling is very high. I am confident most who feel that way would feel that way regardless of any non-footballing random human attributes.

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I never said they were above criticism mate, the issue for me is that it's a pile on because neither of them run around like blue arsed flies, that's not an attribute that wows me, it's an English thing and I'm English, but I tend to view the game more like the European leagues, where you rarely hear plaudits for "putting in a shift" as that's what average players do to make it look like they are doing something imo, it's often the case that they are just running for the sake of it and using up energy, it fools people into thinking they are dying for the cause and all that stuff.

If you look back I've criticised both, I have said I'd sell Pogba and i thought he was disiniterested tonight. I said at the start of last season that I wasn't confident Martial could do the striker job and he needs to improve no doubt, but for anyone to single him out tonight when he scored our only chance and there was Maguire playing like an amateur and Bruno giving the ball away like it was burning his foot, just reeks of agenda to me.

We can let Rashford off his bad performances as long as he scores but with Martial it's different.
Different strokes for different folks that's redcafe for you.

Pogba gets all the heat but Martial is just as lazy

Mourinho was right about the likes of him and Shaw

Great finish with his head. Made it look very easy.

He wasnt a problem today. Think we need to feed him much quicker

Sylar said:

Great finish with his head. Made it look very easy.

He wasnt a problem today. Think we need to feed him much quicker

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the ball just doesnt stick enough when the ball is played up to him. lost count how many times their defenders robbed him off the ball easy

so talented (more talented than Marcus imo) but still very inconsistent. frustrating

415 said:

We can let Rashford off his bad performances as long as he scores but with Martial it's different.
Different strokes for different folks that's redcafe for you.

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Because this cult following Martial has are the most annoying twats on the whole forum. They’re so removed from reality it’s unreal. Do you ever let Rashford off for bad performances? I doubt it.

Beautiful header, he's actually quite decent in the air when he gets a chance.

OL29 said:

Seems to take an age to get the ball out of his feet which probably explains the number of fouls he wins.

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That's a skill, not a weakness. In the areas he is receiving the ball in he is usually outnumbered and tightly marked.

I thought he was abysmal.

A typical Martial performance. Took his goal well but looked uninterested for the remainder. A complete cowards performance that highlighted (again) his lack of urgency and unwillingness to work hard for the team.

How many players in this utd team are going to fall under the bracket "talented but doesnt work hard enough"

It's a complete mystery to me as all elite footballers have to do the basics right - and so many of ours dont.

Martial is easily our most frustrating player. I dont think we will ever win major trophies with him as our no.9. He's not reliable enough

The Original said:

That's a skill, not a weakness. In the areas he is receiving the ball in he is usually outnumbered and tightly marked.

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I think moving away from being tightly marked would be a better skill.

decent goal, horrible performance otherwise, his lack of movement is a real problem, the mid have no outlet when he and Rash aren't making runs in behind. We have a problem with these 2, neither our wingers and neither are centre forwards either, they are somewhere inbetween. Maybe when Cavani is fit, one of either would benefit in a two with him, right now those 2 as a pair doesn't work, too easy to play against. Martin Skrtel is 35, he looked like a prime VVD out there against them. There is a distinct lack of energy shown by both players, whether it's fitness, confidence, lack of coaching or self motivation, possibly a combination of all, I'm not sure, but it isn't good enough.