I have defended Rashford for many years because the talent was there to be seen and he was a United product but thats the problem, we tend to give our products more time of day.
If I appear to be using a broad brush, I’m not but not sure how you can say that pressure is a far fetched theory. It’s all theories including yours cause we are all taking a subjective view not only from the outside in but equally those that have sat next to players for years and had no understanding of how they were coping.
To me, its like Luke Shaw where, aside from one 9 month period his time here has been a few decent moments but mostly disappointing. Lazy and unintelligent, but good technically.
So you think that it's probable that all our players can't handle pressure, every single one of them? Also since 2013, at which point did you tell yourself that United had the best manager/staff or just even one of the top 5 best manager in the world?
I think I said on at least two occasions that I wasn’t being broad brush about it. Context is everything, I don’t think or function in a silo and the world has turned a few times since nearly ten years ago. When things change, so does my opinion.
You did say it twice but it doesn't alter the context of your point.Pressure applies to everyone and almost none of our players have been consistent, so it's not as if you could make the point that pressure only applied to certain players or that in the context of consistency most of our players visibly handle it better. For your point to make sense we would have to accept that Manchester United's size and resulting pressure is only relevant to certain players and/or that only certain players have been inconsistent, both of these propositions are wrong.
).I find that interesting. If we assume that the answers are no, Martial is a good but inconsistent player that isn't going to become very good. That's the definition of a squad player for a very good team, it's the likes of Nani, Asensio, Sané, Berbatov and many others.
I agree that he’s a good squad player to keep however the issue is he doesn’t want that, nor does he seem happy with it, which makes things tricky.
As I said it was tangential, today Martial seemingly chose to continue his career elsewhere but the observation that you made was already shared a year or two ago. And I mentioned it in the past but I would have moved on anyway, basically I think that SAF had the correct idea when it came to rejuvenate the team by bringing new squad players every 3 or 4 years and Martial would have been in that rotation, in a way that's how you keep squad players motivated by having new ones.
If we has consistency with the management for a few years then we might have seen that with him I agree. The issue is we haven’t so each new coach comes in and gives these squad type players another go and we rinse repeat… need to break that cycle. I’m looking forward to summer and what should be a proper reset.
Good post. There was a LOT of raw material when he came in. That early game vs Southampton has been reduced to a gif of him destroying VVD, but he was brilliant otherwise too (in his 1st start, and playing as a 9). Running at the defence, tight control, holding the ball up, at that point he even made runs into channels, ice-cold finishing.
I don't get that because Martial thrived during his competition with Rashford. If anything one should conclude that the only time the wheels came off was when he didn't had competition which is after 19/20.
It was clearly Rashford LW - Martial ST in 19/20 I think? Rashford played as striker only when Martial was injured.
Point faced his competition and always tried to win his competition. Against Rashford and then Sanchez.
Yes and that season without competition was followed by a poor season. Before that under Mourinho Martial was competing with Rashford and beating him, then Rashford would get on the bench and earn starts through cameos. To say that Martial doesn't like competition would be ignoring how he got games between 2016-2019.
His form disappeared when Sanchez joined - he was playing well and scoring from LW that January (he had finally got into the starting XI), never scored again for the rest of the season after that (Sanchez joined end of the month).
Fair enough, he was competing with Rashford under Jose for LW and did win a place - and then lost it when Sanchez came. Not his fault, that whole thing was a disaster, but his form didn't necessarily have to fall the way it did.
That's not really what happened, Martial was immediately moved to the right wing where he is a less player. He then got injured didn't play for a month and struggled to regain form.
We all are surmising so anything that follows it is based on that irrespective of what logic we offer. It is all opinion based. It’s hard to argue that playing for Utd comes with a pressure that is very different to other clubs, even some in their respective leagues. What I’m offering is the opinion that the pressure has impacted on certain plays and this has impacted on aspects of their game e.g inconsistency. Even this is relative and thats why I say it is not a broad brush statement.You did say it twice but it doesn't alter the context of your point.Pressure applies to everyone and almost none of our players have been consistent, so it's not as if you could make the point that pressure only applied to certain players or that in the context of consistency most of our players visibly handle it better. For your point to make sense we would have to accept that Manchester United's size and resulting pressure is only relevant to certain players and/or that only certain players have been inconsistent, both of these propositions are wrong.
And then even in terms of probability, we would have to agree on the idea that +60-70 different players can't handle pressure, that would be incredible bad luck. Then we can add the fact that among these players we have players that have played at the highest level for clubs that are massive including the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Juventus and Manchester United(
I could be wrong and missing something obvious but I don't see the link with pressure, I don't see the context that points to pressure as a key factor in the inconsistency of certain players.
We've literally never, ever played as a pressing team.
Haha
I missed what caused the injury as I was out of the room but it looked to be a problem with his knee, hopefully it's not too serious.
When someone isn't even arsed working hard in a reactive setup, he's probably not going to suddenly become Tevez in his mid 20s.
A massive part of the squad happiness issue is due to our poor form. If all 3 forwards are performing at a really high level, then as a squad player you would at least understand why you are not picked. If the team is playing poorly, and they don’t get picked, they’d rightly wonder why they might not get a chance more often.
100% agree with you
Martial was worse. Wasn’t it 1 goal in 25 or something ridiculous?
No point, he went off injured in the first half.Played against Espanyol today. Can anyone drop the Anto highlights? I don't know how Twitter works
They’re getting the full Martial experience so.
Will never forget the old Rio-Acidic partnership. Rio with his pace - and Acidic always dissolving any threat.
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Hit it on the head. Too rich at too young an age. Lost the desire eg Pog, Shaw, Bissa and Rash (who look miserable) The ones who do look like they give everything are Elanga, Hannibal, Scott, Fred, Matic, Varane but either too young, not talented enough or too old.
I think the difference is that Shaw has the baseline qualities of defending well 1 on 1 and passing the ball well from LB and Martial doesn't have the baseline qualities of a center forward in that he can't be counted on for 5-7 tap ins/headers/rebounds a year in a league season to go with 10-15 goals moreso based on his qualities.
