We signed depay & martial the same season - one was a left winger & the other one is not. Why do people expect him to be this naturally gifted winger?
Do people remember him wearing the number 9 shirt at all, or is it just me? He is a striker & was bought to be one.
- What makes you think he doesn't have the killer instinct to be a striker exactly? He did this at the start of his united career very well- at a time where the team overall was much worse off. This poacher thing is not right in my opinion- the centre forward who plays for Liverpool for example is not a poacher CF; he is someone who plays in-between two wider forwards - there simply not one type of centre forward & there is Support strikers, on the ball strikers, on the shoulder strikers. Martial has plenty ability to do many of them but not the ibrahimovic, lukaku, morata & Giroud type striker that our manager prefers.
- His dribbling skills have been mistaken by fans here as someone who is supposed to isolate fullbacks, cut in and shoot. If you actually watch the way he runs with the ball; he does not dribble like wingers do - he prefers to drift with the ball- he plays like that because he is used to taking on central defenders not fullbacks. Wingers have the ability to dribble and take their man on skillfully both on the inside and the outside as well as provide a cross, pass or a shot. Martial's natural game is more to drop to one side of his shoulder & to directly take on one of the CB's to try and find himself in space by enticing the CB to take him on as he drifts in - this would then allow him to either be one on one with the goalkeeper or find him in open space to make a opening pass.
- The same thing has happened with Rashford; who is lucky to have broken through as a ST during LVG's final games rather than a RW or a LW - otherwise Jose would have utilised him soley as a LW or RW purely for his ability to take on fullbacks with pace & to isolate the full back to play cross or take a shot when cutting in. Martial being more than average as a LW has made people angry that he is an average LW.