Totally agree with this. Even last night he tried several 1-2's around the edge of the box but just got ignored by Lingard mainly.
Are Martial's problems to do with the level of the team or independent of them?
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I agree with you on most of this except Martial ever contributing to the high press game. He is far too casual at times and this is where he lets himself and the team down. He should also show more fight if he wants to become a top CF. He needs to throw himself in where it hurts and score the tap ins also.
Yeah i get what you're saying. Beyond a point, Martial's underperformance cannot be blamed on another player. But our midfield has also unquestionably been rather shiite for most of this season
I think he's worse than then because he's filled out into his adult body and isn't as agile or quick as he was.
I think he's a good footballer but I've never seen anything remotely world class about him. He's not that quick, not that skilful, not that hard working... His dribbling technique often seems to be to wait for the defenders to get into position, then try to go past them, rather than forcing the issue when the opposition is unprepared. He can be a tidy finisher but it's all a bit one dimensional.
I'm sure he'll improve as the midfield behind him does... He's got enough going for him to persevere a bit longer.
I'm sure he'll improve as the midfield behind him does... He's got enough going for him to persevere a bit longer.
Martial is one of few in the entire squad who many would believe has a ceiling and level of potential beyond what we've seen to this point in time, and his talent makes that hard to refute, particularly on any level of absolutism as we've (fanbase) got with a lot of others in the team who are classed as not good enough and ripe for culling the moment replacements can be found. Martial, then, is far removed from the critique or even consideration lesser lights get, because there's no hope or belief in them in the full term - isolating Martial is actually a credit to him, and as the question asks: is it down to him, or is it the team around him that is holding him back. You wouldn't get legs out of the same question put forth for anyone else but Rashford (Greenwood is no part of the query given his age and growing pains etc.) because they're seen as write offs or eventual squad members at best.
I would love to see Martial succeed here - you won't see a single post of mine to the contrary. When he's not doing well, I don't mention it nor get involved in those threads because I have had my own preconceived notion that he'd be just fine once those around him were of a certain level. I thought it was an interesting talking point because perhaps that's not the case, and perhaps there is more to it/him than that. For me, he's at least a partial enigma. I feel like I have the answer some of the time, but others not. I'm not interested in cliches as I will always conduct my own analysis and conclude from it.
But anyway, it's annoying that threads are being shoehorned into one thing or other on tracks instead of just simple discussions where no agenda is assumed. 'Martial' should not trigger Pavlovian response with blinkers on - question can just be questions.
Player who needs others around him to really excel, not got the mentality or ability to be a consistent threat spearheading an attack.
Not a criticism, just the player he is. Class on his day, but can't be expected to do it on his own.
Not a criticism, just the player he is. Class on his day, but can't be expected to do it on his own.
To be fair he would be unlikely to pick him out if he was free.I've witnessed Andreas on the ball looking for some movement and a pass and Martial just stood static in front of him so many times
Indeed. A world class forward could help compensate for limited service. Sadly we havent had one in years.
To know how well Martial should be doing, we need to compare him not with City or Liverpool's attackers, but attackers in the league who play week in week out with the likes of Pereira and Lingard, flanked by AWB and Dan James.
When Martial had just one other decent partner in Rashford, his performances were elevated much more. Now imagine a whole decent midfield; a whole decent, functional attacking team. I think he'd be pretty decent.
The funny thing is we've seen evidence of good players elevating each other earlier in the season, after struggling alone. It wasn't that long ago, are the memories that short?
When Martial had just one other decent partner in Rashford, his performances were elevated much more. Now imagine a whole decent midfield; a whole decent, functional attacking team. I think he'd be pretty decent.
The funny thing is we've seen evidence of good players elevating each other earlier in the season, after struggling alone. It wasn't that long ago, are the memories that short?
Oh I agree completely, he’s got to take responsibility in those moments. However I’d argue that the team hasn’t been completely right since the early days of Ole’s caretaker role.
Did you see the way Salah (albeit a great player) pushed him off recently ? He'd be a shocking RB imo.
Salah is deceptively strong. It's very hard to knock him off the ball, hence why he scores so many goals.
He's a lesser version of Ben Arfa. Patches of world class but rarely.
He doesnt even run or makes runs when he's off. Wonder if its about mentality or just intelligence or arrogance.
There's no surprise what so ever that he aint part of the France set up.
I cant figure him out.
He doesnt even run or makes runs when he's off. Wonder if its about mentality or just intelligence or arrogance.
There's no surprise what so ever that he aint part of the France set up.
I cant figure him out.
Again I was listening to Talksport and Brazil and Cascarino both said Manchester United should not be a counter attacking team, now and again is fine, but not as a tactic. Not listening to it tomorrow, he has Neil 'fecking' Warnock on. On Brexit day he has that clown on.
He didn’t ‘push’ him off, he ‘held’ him off, which I think is very different. Salah is very strong, it’s no given James would just push him over there. But it wasn’t as ridiculous as Drogba vs Aliou Traore all those years ago!
You didn't need to defend yourself from something I didn't accuse you of, I didn't say that you had an agenda and my point wasn't limited to Martial, it's the same thing with Rashford, Pogba or the central defense. My point is exactly what I stated, we can't judge players in isolation because they are not isolated, their performances are directly linked to their environment and in the case of Martial as a striker or Rashford earlier in the season, you can't expect consistency from players playing a role that has to rely on extremely inconsistent service, if you look at Martial output, it is consistent and above average, if we want from him, we need to have a stronger and more consistent team.
For me the problem lies with Martial a lot of the time. He is a luxury player, that generally can put in a touch of class during a match, but at the same time doesn't have the ability to drag a team forward on his own, and doesn't have the aggression to put the opposition under any pressure when off the ball.
He is a very skillful player on the ball, but will just as often just keep dribbling and end up getting closed down by a couple of players and lose the ball or dribble out of touch/toward the corner. That lack of clinical drive and knowing when to play the ball off is what holds him back at times.
He will doubtless be more effective with better players around him, that make up for his deficiencies. By the weaknesses will still be there. So it would be the other players making him look better, than him actually being any better.
He is a very skillful player on the ball, but will just as often just keep dribbling and end up getting closed down by a couple of players and lose the ball or dribble out of touch/toward the corner. That lack of clinical drive and knowing when to play the ball off is what holds him back at times.
He will doubtless be more effective with better players around him, that make up for his deficiencies. By the weaknesses will still be there. So it would be the other players making him look better, than him actually being any better.
It's baffling to me, people forget he scored at the Emptyhad just last month. But now without Rashford & McT and a dead duck in Lingard behind him, he's supposed to magically create goals out of nothing? Nobody can get him the ball in any dangerous positions so he's pretty much fecked.
Martial needs either Pogba or Rashford to flourish. Let's hope Bruno does the trick with his obvious quality!
This to me is one of the problems talking about him. Memories are so short, it's like all the good things are erased.
He's our 2nd top scorer, meaning he's probably been winning us a few games this season with his goals. So all these accusations don't make much sense, unless people expect him to be getting a goal or more per game in our current setup, to constantly bail us out.
People forget, but then people use good moments to forgive him for so many many ineffective performances. I think he's got a place in this squad, but I think we should be looking for a better starting striker.
I don’t know why not more people are mentioning this, it seems to be our biggest problem regarding player development right now. 9/10 players does not improve given the chance to play regularly. It is easy to draw parallels to earning as much as you do in this team you are to comfortable to improve your skills. If I would earn 1m per year I wouldn’t either trying to get better.
Easy to be lazy when you're on £250k per week.
How did we sanction such a contract for a player who has demonstrated so little?
How did we sanction such a contract for a player who has demonstrated so little?
We should, like we should for all positions. At the exception of few, there isn't actually a lot of people that believes that Martial is best thing since sliced bread, I personally see him as a flawed player that still gives us good production per minutes played, I don't have him in a different category to players like Rashford or AWB who are also flawed and would most likely not start for the very best teams in the world.
Martial is a lazy player and that shows every time he plays. I think of players like Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke for example, both talented in their different way´s but they worked their socks of really. Martial seems to think he´s way better than he is and how I dislike players that can not give 100% on the field every f... time. Make your attacking runs, track back and stop thinking you are to good to do this work. It´s also not helping that we hardly have a prober striker as I consider Greenwood the only striker we have. Rashford and Martial are both more suited coming in from the left.
Rashford is showing all the right signs. If he continues to develop the way he has been, the team needs to make sure it keeps pace
Rashford is doing better, with less games, and playing out of position.
All that way back when he had his LVG run of great performances, it seemed like he'd go on to become a Henry-esque hybrid striker/wing-forward combination, he still might, but it seems Martial himself wants to play straight through the middle.
It's difficult then if he's not doing the things you need a striker to do, but is that down to our circumstance (as others have mentioned, him drifting or coming too deep because he feels he has to) or is it because he doesn't have those instincts?
Interesting to think of it possibly being a matter for Ole to tweak, as I've not taken that angle to Martial before.
The truth is that Lukaku is levels above him overall as a striker.
Rashford isn't playing out of position and has played 5 more games, around 400 more minutes.
Playing out of position? Left forward is clearly his best position, how have you not picked up on that yet? A large part of the way Rashford has played this season is down to Martial.
Rashford is a striker, and ok I might be wrong about the games played.
I think it’s been obvious for over 2/3 seasons its service in to him and pretty much all our front players. The only players really capable of playing the defence breaking pass or something different happens to be Martial and Pogba. Martial can’t pass to himself and well Pogba has been injured most of this season.
There is just something fractured with this team. It just doesn’t quite work right or has a whole mix of different elements that just don’t compliment each other. Like trying to make spaghetti with just salad.
Sancho on the right, Rashford on the left Bruno and Pogba as 8’s with a DM and in my opinion you’d see a huge improvement in him and the team in general.
Rashford isn't a striker, he is an inside forward. From memory he wasn't even a striker at youth level, if I'm not mistaken he was moved during the last years due to injuries. His best position at professional level is as an inside forward on the left.
Think most match going fans can tell you he's very static. I haven't been to that many games this season but in the ones I have he doesn't move much compared to the other players, especially compared to Rashford.
Yeah, he was such an exciting player when we sign him, always thought something will happen when he had ball at his feet.
I think he drops deep as that's his natural playing style, like Rooney was and looked frustrated when he was asked to stick to 9 position and play without ball. The problem we have is, we don't have complimenting players. I won't blame coach or player alone, since SAF retired this has been our common problem. We have players but don't have team to get best out of each other. This season it looked like attacking 3 linked up well and then we had injury crisis, lacked proper replacements and then back to square 1.
Totally agree with that. He has imo been at his best since he switched to the left inside forward position.
Maybe every time one of our players performs poorly it's actually because the rest of the team weren't at the same level as them?
Or does this only apply to players who it isn't cool to slag off?
He can be good enough on his day but he's too inconsistent. His biggest problem is that for someone who wants to play as a striker apparently, he spends an awful lot of time looking like someone being asked to play up front who'd prefer to be playing on the wing.
Also, in spite of that, his goalscoring record isn't really all that bad. Think it'd be just under 1 every 2 games this season...you'd be paying a lot of money to get a striker who'd guarantee you better. It's just that he has games like last night, where he just doesn't look like he's trying to do anything.
Or does this only apply to players who it isn't cool to slag off?
He can be good enough on his day but he's too inconsistent. His biggest problem is that for someone who wants to play as a striker apparently, he spends an awful lot of time looking like someone being asked to play up front who'd prefer to be playing on the wing.
Also, in spite of that, his goalscoring record isn't really all that bad. Think it'd be just under 1 every 2 games this season...you'd be paying a lot of money to get a striker who'd guarantee you better. It's just that he has games like last night, where he just doesn't look like he's trying to do anything.
Maybe this explains all the misplaced passes. He's having trouble finding himself.