[Ballache]

Martial needs Rashford just like Rashford needs Martial. Few fans couldn't wait to shit on Rashford when he struggled during Martial's absence, now we are struggling to score in Rashford's absence. Martial doesn't have anyone on his wavelength and there is no player who is occupying the goal scoring positions when he is creating the space.

ManUtd fans should learn to appreciate both instead of acting like fan boy for one player and shitting on other.

Agreed.
The lack of creativity is holding them back too. We desperately need a RW, AM and a CM. We also need to add another striker. Oh and a new manager.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

He's a good player, but he isn't a player I would ever really want to rely on... And right now we have to rely on him.

 

[Hughes35]

He is a good player when things are going right but utterly useless when he has to fight. Ultimately he doesn't have the drive to achieve the consistency needed to be a top player.

Agree with you, as far as our problems go he is far down the packing order that we could do with keeping him for a season or two whilst we deal with the mess that is our midfield and adding on some real creativity into the team. In the summer I'd sooner buy a DM, AM and RW before thinking about the striker but he is the next one out after that.

Exactly, It won't happen because of how the club is run and where we find ourselves but to use an extreme scenario...........If we brought in Poch, new coaches and bought Ndidi, Sancho, Havertz, Smalling return then we would be "Fixed" even without a new CF. Again, none of these signings are realistic anymore because of how far we have fallen.

Getting to the top is much harder than staying there. Liverpool could buy any player mentioned above, because the players now want to be there.

 

[JPRouve]

He's a good player, but he isn't a player I would ever really want to rely on... And right now we have to rely on him.

His role means that you can't rely on him, he is a support player in the last third and he currently has no one to support. During the first half, it's Greenwood that should have been on the field next to him instead of Pereira or James. I'm still surprised by two things, people not realizing that Rashford isn't good without the support of someone like Martial and Martial isn't good without the support of someone like Rashford, one of our issues is that Ole seem to not care about fit and complementarity and we lack back ups that fit our plan A, when one of Martial or Rashford is injured our attack becomes subpar. The other thing is that attackers do not score every chances, more often than not they miss them, so I'm always baffled by the caf expecting our players to score every chances that they get, it was the same story with Lukaku and it makes no sense.

 

[AneRu]

Exactly, It won't happen because of how the club is run and where we find ourselves but to use an extreme scenario...........If we brought in Poch, new coaches and bought Ndidi, Sancho, Havertz, Smalling return then we would be "Fixed" even without a new CF. Again, none of these signings are realistic anymore because of how far we have fallen.

Getting to the top is much harder than staying there. Liverpool could buy any player mentioned above, because the players now want to be there.

The beauty about football is that it's now a global game where everyone has the opportunity to rise because of how wide the scouting networks are. Look at Arsenal and Leicester; no one challenged Arsenal for Martinelli whilst Leicester find themselves in the top 3 after quietly building their side with players like Ndidi on the cheap.

United just need someone who knows what they are doing and who is willing to think outside the box and not confine themselves only to the PL market. You can't tell me that there isn't a couple of unfancied good players that would relish the chance to play for United and earn a fortune who are currently floating about in Germany, France, Italy and Holland.

What we need to do is to avoid throwing the baby away with the bath water. Remember the injuries we have and remind ourselves of what we thought we needed when we still had McT and Rashford fit. Get those players in, improve on the coach and see how it goes.

No matter how much we spend it's still going to be a step by step process. Next summer we have to spend to get into the top 4 and continue with the process after that. So next summer let's get a DM, AM and RF/RW to get the team some balance and improve on that in the summer of 2021 by signing a thirty goal striker to replace Martial.

 

[ghaliboy]

Martial needs Rashford just like Rashford needs Martial.

I don't get this quotable at all. Rashford has shown he can perform and score a variety of goals from the 9 position at various times in his United career to date. Martial has shown nothing more than 3-4 weeks at the start of this season playing up front that made fans sit up in their chair and go "Okay I like where we're going with this!" which has petered out again into inconsistency again.

You could just as easily build the team around Rashford up front and have Martial coming off the bench and you'd probably see returns in one to two years with bringing in solid wide players and a 10 who hit the ground running.
You could just as easily build the team around Martial up front and have Rashford on the left and you would still see the same varying degrees of inconsistency in both players but over time you'd be questioning why Rashford is out on the left because he fits better in various positions.

 

[roonster09]

I don't get this quotable at all. Rashford has shown he can perform and score a variety of goals from the 9 position at various times in his United career to date. Martial has shown nothing more than 3-4 weeks at the start of this season playing up front that made fans sit up in their chair and go "Okay I like where we're going with this!" which has petered out again into inconsistency again.

You could just as easily build the team around Rashford up front and have Martial coming off the bench and you'd probably see returns in one to two years with bringing in solid wide players and a 10 who hit the ground running.
You could just as easily build the team around Martial up front and have Rashford on the left and you would still see the same varying degrees of inconsistency in both players but over time you'd be questioning why Rashford is out on the left because he fits better in various positions.

Rashford was very poor as CF when leading the line, he played his best football as wide forward/left winger. So I don't think we can build the team with Rashford as CF. IMO he played his best football alongside Martial as he is one of the player who links well with him and creates space, same with Martial playing well with Rashford too.

Martial has shown enough playing alongside Rashford to believe they can form good partnership. Playing Rashford as CF is probably the most insane decision that we can make going by how season panned out.

 

[kouroux]

Martial needs Rashford just like Rashford needs Martial. Few fans couldn't wait to shit on Rashford when he struggled during Martial's absence, now we are struggling to score in Rashford's absence. Martial doesn't have anyone on his wavelength and there is no player who is occupying the goal scoring positions when he is creating the space.

ManUtd fans should learn to appreciate both instead of acting like fan boy for one player and shitting on other.

There is also the option of fairly criticizing them both when they don't do as well as they could. I'll always prefer Martial on the left, he just isn't a natural striker and won't be long term at this club.

 

[LInkash]

Imagine Firmino without Salah and Mane, that's how I see it.

 

[Smores]

Stick him out on the left until Rashford returns. Let Greenwood have his central spot and roll the dice on Gomes as a 10.

We need him on the left against hard to breakdown teams as it causes them to come out leaving gaps. Also allows williams to overlap who is dangerous and willing enough.

 

[roonster09]

There is also the option of fairly criticizing them both when they don't do as well as they could. I'll always prefer Martial on the left, he just isn't a natural striker and won't be long term at this club.

Of course every player should be criticized when they don't play well, that wasn't my point.

 

[ghaliboy]

Rashford was very poor as CF when leading the line, he played his best football as wide forward/left winger. So I don't think we can build the team with Rashford as CF. IMO he played his best football alongside Martial as he is one of the player who links well with him and creates space, same with Martial playing well with Rashford too.

Just flat out disagree, he's played his best football for us up front and for England.

 

[slored1]

He's too inconsistent to be relied on in every game. Shouldn't ever be the main striker of a team with top 4 aspirations.

 

[roonster09]

Just flat out disagree, he's played his best football for us up front and for England.

He barely played upfront for England. Its Kane's position, he plays as wing forward for them. Rashford's best season and best games are from wing forward. Except the run of 6-7 games when Ole took over, Rashford barely played as CF since 2016 and even when he did he struggled.

 

[André Dominguez]

So, you guys saying that Martial without Rashford is just almost like a broken pencil...

 

[Mike Smalling]

One could reasonably argue that his finishing has cost us 3-4 points in the last two games. Simply not good enough.

With Rashford out and most of our other forward players firing blanks, it looks like we might be in for a horrible period.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Beautiful footballer on his day, but he's just so inconsistent when not "in the mood". He really should have scored 1 of the 2 chances he had in the first half.

I think with Rashfords injury we should be pushing him back out to the LW and bringing in a proper CF like Cavani. The whole game plan has gone with the injuries we have.

 

[EireRed_GS]

I tell you what, we complain about our MF having no creativity to feed our forwards... watching martial times has me convinced he's a huge part of that, he gives them even less options.

This season he wanted to be the main man at no.9, but lets be honest he's not up to it. He's just not cut out to the main striker. Off the ball, he simply doesn't even make an effort to find space / make runs to open up options. On the ball when he has space to run he looks good. Off the ball he's atrocious. He might as well have pockets in them shorts. If you can be bothered to do the work, you shouldnt be the main striker.

Thats what the best strikers do, they work their socks off up front pulling defenders all over the place to create chances for themselves. Even if we did sign someone who can pick a forward pass, ie Fernandes, they would be standing baffled wondering why this lad isnt moving ahead of him. very frustrating.

 

[Fredo]

I tell you what, we complain about our MF having no creativity to feed our forwards... watching martial times has me convinced he's a huge part of that, he gives them even less options.

This season he wanted to be the main man at no.9, but lets be honest he's not up to it. He's just not cut out to the main striker. Off the ball, he simply doesn't even make an effort to find space / make runs to open up options. On the ball when he has space to run he looks good. Off the ball he's atrocious. He might as well have pockets in them shorts. If you can be bothered to do the work, you shouldnt be the main striker.

Thats what the best strikers do, they work their socks off up front pulling defenders all over the place to create chances for themselves. Even if we did sign someone who can pick a forward pass, ie Fernandes, they would be standing baffled wondering why this lad isnt moving ahead of him. very frustrating.

Finally some sense, yesterday he was wank, the only time where he started showing he is in the game is when he went outside the box to get the ball and drive forward, which he did quite late. He has the dribbles to beat a man so I don't understand why he insists on not getting the ball outside the box when our crossing/ball delivery is shit... off the ball Martial is a championship player.

 

[Art Vandelay]

I tell you what, we complain about our MF having no creativity to feed our forwards... watching martial times has me convinced he's a huge part of that, he gives them even less options.

This season he wanted to be the main man at no.9, but lets be honest he's not up to it. He's just not cut out to the main striker. Off the ball, he simply doesn't even make an effort to find space / make runs to open up options. On the ball when he has space to run he looks good. Off the ball he's atrocious. He might as well have pockets in them shorts. If you can be bothered to do the work, you shouldnt be the main striker.

Thats what the best strikers do, they work their socks off up front pulling defenders all over the place to create chances for themselves. Even if we did sign someone who can pick a forward pass, ie Fernandes, they would be standing baffled wondering why this lad isnt moving ahead of him. very frustrating.

Yeah and the lack of movement isn't a new thing either. It's the exact same issue he had on the left where if he didn't get it played to his feet he wasn't interested. He rarely bothered looking to move off the ball which was even more annoying when you saw what he could do when he bothered.

 

[EireRed_GS]

Finally some sense, yesterday he was wank, the only time where he started showing he is in the game is when he went outside the box to get the ball and drive forward, which he did quite late. He has the dribbles to beat a man so I don't understand why he insists on not getting the ball outside the box when our crossing/ball delivery is shit... off the ball Martial is a championship player.

lets be honest if he wants to be our striker, thats not really his job, he should be in front of that person looking for the pass. His lack of movement really really rags me. I sit behind the goal and can see the areas quite well, and theres big empty spaces up front and he's no where to be seen. Alot of the time he finds a space beside a defender and stays there, its nearly like hes marking the feckin defender.

His unbelievable lack of effort to find chances doesnt give him many chances at all, and recently he's fluffed majority of chances that have come his way

 

[dogwithabone]

Cash in before he gets any worse.

 

[Hammondo]

Imagine Firmino without Salah and Mane, that's how I see it.

Martial is nothing like Firmino.

 

[shaky]

We should have allowed Jose to sell him when he wanted to. It's a shame that the board seems to think that refusing to back our managers is a viable strategy. "Mourinho sold De Bruyne and Salah!" everyone cried. Too many people more worried about hypothetical "what ifs" than the actual reality of the player that was in front of us.

 

[Bestofthebest]

People are just beginning to realise that Martial isn’t the player that we would like him to be. I have had my suspicions for a few seasons that he is not good enough for a top team and last night just about confirmed that. He was like a fish out of water and more less gave up by half time. Very laboured and looked so static at times, as if he didn’t want the ball. With him as the spearhead I can see us finishing lots of games scoreless unless others pull us out of the mire. I said in another post that we would find out how good he is now Rashford is out only for my post to called “weird “ Am I bothered?......NO.

 

[Fredo]

lets be honest if he wants to be our striker, thats not really his job, he should be in front of that person looking for the pass. His lack of movement really really rags me. I sit behind the goal and can see the areas quite well, and theres big empty spaces up front and he's no where to be seen. Alot of the time he finds a space beside a defender and stays there, its nearly like hes marking the feckin defender.

His unbelievable lack of effort to find chances doesnt give him many chances at all, and recently he's fluffed majority of chances that have come his way

Correct, but when AWB keeps on crossing hopelessly to the box and that when we have 0 quality from both flanks to put in a decent cross, I mean as a striker he should think of at least going out of the box earlier, try to be more active in the buildup. He just sulks behind the defender while knowing he can cross the ball probably better than most of the midfielders/wingers we have.

 

[kouroux]

Correct, but when AWB keeps on crossing hopelessly to the box and that when we have 0 quality from both flanks to put in a decent cross, I mean as a striker he should think of at least going out of the box earlier, try to be more active in the buildup. He just sulks behind the defender while knowing he can cross the ball probably better than most of the midfielders/wingers we have.

The chance he missed from AWB's cross, if he was more alert, he'd have had an easy chance to score.
Crazy how he ended up tackling the ball with his left.

 

[Canagel]

I tell you what, we complain about our MF having no creativity to feed our forwards... watching martial times has me convinced he's a huge part of that, he gives them even less options.

This season he wanted to be the main man at no.9, but lets be honest he's not up to it. He's just not cut out to the main striker. Off the ball, he simply doesn't even make an effort to find space / make runs to open up options. On the ball when he has space to run he looks good. Off the ball he's atrocious. He might as well have pockets in them shorts. If you can be bothered to do the work, you shouldnt be the main striker.

Thats what the best strikers do, they work their socks off up front pulling defenders all over the place to create chances for themselves. Even if we did sign someone who can pick a forward pass, ie Fernandes, they would be standing baffled wondering why this lad isnt moving ahead of him. very frustrating.

This is not true. In the previous match and before that he made lots of clever runs in behind/in front of his marker that were not found. The player will move when they trust that they will be found with great passes. I bet that he gave up on moving, probably until Pogba is back.

 

[Green_Red]

He is playing like that as thats how our system is setup. We play with Rashford to come centrally when he drops deep. Not sure why Ole didnt adjust

I hope you're not trying to say that Ole is playing him as a false 9 in a 4231 formation because you can't play a false 9 and a 10 at the same time, it doesn't work. Which is exactly why him and Pereira keep getting dragged towards the ball. You also can't have wide runners trying to cross into the box when you don't have a 9 in there. It's a pointless exercise. That's why I've been saying we need a proper striker, someone who can get in the box and lives off scoring goals in the 18 / 6 yard box.

I can tell you right now, last night where I was sitting is where I sat last season when United played Young Boys under Mourinho and 100% there is a feeling of frustration towards this team right now and that is only going to go one place.

If I can see what the issue is then why can't the management? Why is Ole not on the touchline bolloxing someone to get into the box and start running off the shoulders of defenders to make it more difficult for them. Its crazy stuff now.

 

[edgar allan]

He was bad yesterday no doubt about it. And I think he knows it but I've said it on the Maguire performance thread as well. No Ddg thread after yesterday? Is there some kind of agenda on the CAF not to say anything bad about our talented but obviously not really motivated keeper anymore? Burnley managed two shots on goal. That's how much they scored as well.
[/QUOTE
No keeper saving them.

 

[Cassidy]

I hope you're not trying to say that Ole is playing him as a false 9 in a 4231 formation because you can't play a false 9 and a 10 at the same time, it doesn't work.

Yes you can doesnt meant it will work. Anyway he drops deep to allow space for the left forward to go central. And he ends up going left or right

 

[EireRed_GS]

This is not true. In the previous match and before that he made lots of clever runs in behind/in front of his marker that were not found. The player will move when they trust that they will be found with great passes. I bet that he gave up on moving, probably until Pogba is back.

Sorry mate, but thats balls.. he does make good runs *when he can be bothered*, and very few at that, most of his chances come from him running with the ball. Most of the time hes just walking around. Even when pogba is on, he plays pretty the same. He got his act together a bit in the second half vs wolves, last time round at OT, but i remember his first half being shocking

And if he has given up until a particular player is back, whats the point of having him leading the line? Any other team you'd be benched for that. We just dont have other options right now

 

[Green_Red]

Yes you can doesnt meant it will work. Anyway he drops deep to allow space for the left forward to go central. And he ends up going left or right

He drops deep to allow space for the left forward. What left forward? James? Come on man, you play a false 9 in a 433, not in a 4231.

 

[Cassidy]

He drops deep to allow space for the left forward. What left forward? James? Come on man, you play a false 9 in a 433, not in a 4231.

Usually Rashford who is our top scorer. Again I didnt say false 9 you did. But his movements match what I said.

 

[Erictheking7]

I like Martial, he's a good player. Unfortunately I don't think he has the tools to be the main striker in a top team. Support striker, yes but not the main man.

 

[Green_Red]

Usually Rashford who is our top scorer. Again I didnt say false 9 you did. But his movements match what I said.

I never said you did, did I? What you are describing, a man at the point of the attacking formation coming deep to receive the ball to allow runners to go past him is a false 9. That's the false part, it looks like he is a 9 but he comes deep and plays as a 10. Sometimes referred to as a 9 and a half.

 

[Cassidy]

I never said you did, did I? What you are describing, a man at the point of the attacking formation coming deep to receive the ball to allow runners to go past him is a false 9.

No it is not its a deep lying forward. Jesus you do realise strikers who drop deep has been a thing before Messi right.
Fact is Ole did not adjust his tactics for the absence of Rashford

 

[Green_Red]

No it is not its a deep lying forward. Jesus you do realise strikers who drop deep has been a thing before Messi right.
Fact is Ole did not adjust his tactics for the absence of Rashford

You're talking absolute bollox now man. How can the 1 in a 4231 be a deep lying forward? If you start as the point of attack, as the 1, in a 4231 then you are the #9. If you come deep from that position in the formation you are playing a false 9 strategy. A deep lying forward is in a 4411, the first 1, is the deep lying forward.

 

[Cassidy]

You're talking absolute bollox now man. How can the 1 in a 4231 be a deep lying forward? If you start as the point of attack, as the 1, in a 4231 then you are the #9. If you come deep from that position in the formation you are playing a false 9 strategy. A deep lying forward is in a 4411, the first 1, is the deep lying forward.

Look I only say what we see on the pitch which is Martial regularly dropping deep and wide. Simple as. He does not play at the focal point
No need to be fixated on formations talk about what you see on the pitch.
And if it doesnt work maybe thats because we have a clueless manager

 

[Green_Red]

Look I only say what we see on the pitch which is Martial regularly dropping deep and wide. Simple as. He does not play at the focal point
No need to be fixated on formations talk about what you see on the pitch.
And if it doesnt work maybe thats because we have a clueless manager

And I am saying, if where I sit in the ground, north stand last night, I can see that by doing that Martial is leaving too much space for defenders to come into which then causes congestion when our midfield come forward, which leads to this sideways shite around the box, then why can't the management team. fecking hell!