Daniel Taylor on Martial

gza the genius

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DT is fair in his assessment of Martial (its far from a hatchet job), saying that he drifts between a 6 and 8 rating but never looks enthusiastic. Recognizes that he has the skills to succeed but questions if he has the drive to push on and consistently give 9/10 performances that the ballon d'or type players do.

Some of the stories mentioned:

Ranieri (who is not known for calling players out) calling out Martial's lack of application while at Monaco
One story about coming on as a sub on 60 mins at Monaco and being subbed off 20 mins later having done nothing
Another about missing a match (away against Norwich 3 years ago) due to a supposed injury but being fine the following Monday for training, resulting in one of the senior players being disgusted and saying Martial 'didn't fancy it'
So the most recent story is from 3 years ago when he was still a 20 year old kid?

I'm not saying there isn't any merit to what was said but when then best you can come up with are stories from 3 years ago you have to wonder what exactly the point of the interview was. Certainly a weird time to bring all that up when he's mostly looked good this season when fit and has been scoring and assisting fairly regularly.
 

Betson

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I think very few question his talent but it is valid criticism to question his drive and will to succeed , he still has not lived up to the great potential he had , at least not consistently anyway. He tends to react with performances when he is fighting for a place or comes under sustained criticism after poor runs or is under contract talks but not driven enough to put in 100% effort performances week in and out just because as a professional footballer that is what you want to do each week.
 

Nevilles.Wear.Prada

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I like martial. Came into difficult transition period of the club. Played in roles he wasn't accustomed to and sometimes hit and miss. Its understandable. So what if he has some weird body language as long as he is delivering on the pitch? He is doing well on the side now. We are manchester united, people will still write about us and our players even when its liverpool and city is winning everything. There is a reason for all that. Screw em. As for me, I'll question him when he form drops, until then its Martial FC y'all!
 

Hawks2008

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He's 24 in a few weeks, I'm not saying he's an OAP before people jump on me, but he's not 20 anymore. There's only so long we can point to the moments of brilliance. He's barely progressed since he got here. I desperately want him to fulfil his clear potential, but I'd be lying if I said I believe he will, at least at Utd.

People who talk like we shouldn't bring in another striker because we have him are quite frankly mad.

Many on here in love with the idea of what Martial could be, and not what he currently is. He's got all the materials to be very good, but is unbelievably frustrating.

I hope it can click for him, maybe with more quality around him, some better coaching, we'll see more from him.
This sums up how I feel about him for all his implied talent we barely seen any since his first season. For years people have been screaming for the club to clear the path to the first team for Martial and blaming everyone else for his failings. No more excuses this time around.
 

SteveW

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He's played really well this season. But people just want to criticise. What's fecking new?
 

Dante

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That's not what the discussion is about, at least not in the video. Everyone can see that Martial has enough quality about him to be great but so far he's still not been great. Good, not great. If United want to be a great club again then they need to have someone great up top. Every club needs that. Is Martial that player? His ambition and work rate is being questioned here. Manchester United under Sir Alex had the atmosphere of celebrating a win on the pitch but on the way back to the dressing room the focus is set on winning the next match. That's it. Winners don't rest. Ole has that mentality and his job is to instill that in his players or find players who will have that mentality or at least be suject to that mentality. We can all see that the group of players we have now don't have it. A player here and there sure but collectively no.
Excellent post. Sums it up really well.
 

0le

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It must be easy for a journalist covering United news. Our fans will believe absolutely everything negative written about the club.
 

meamth

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His ability with his back to goal is horrendous. He doesn't know the basics of being a striker. He thinks of it as mostly just scoring goals.

Rashford is lacking the composure in the final third. Too erratic with the ball and usually lost the plot when he did amazing moves.

Martial on the other hand, looks more composed and when he holds the ball with this back to the goal, seems to know what he is doing.

Many cases when he is isolated, people put the blame on him, but usually when we're playing well, it's when Martial is playing well.

He can't play up top alone, and when we didn't have that CAM vs Sheffield, he looks disjointed.
 

Champagne Football

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Have a feeling Martial will be more of a super-sub further down the line. He's a good option to bring on with 30 mins to go, to terrorize tired defenders. Whether we land Moussa Dembele or Erling Haaland over the summer, I feel Martial's role in the first XI will be reduced when that happens.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Have a feeling Martial will be more of a super-sub further down the line. He's a good option to bring on with 30 mins to go, to terrorize tired defenders. Whether we land Moussa Dembele or Erling Haaland over the summer, I feel Martial's role in the first XI will be reduced when that happens.
Moussa Dembele? People don't really seem to rate him. Very doubtful a player of that level would resign martial to the bench.
 

roonster09

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For the first time since Van Gaal season he is playing as CF and he has done well this season. ManUtd's attacking improved with his return, we are scoring more goals now.

Some of the posts are just odd, comparing his goals per game (career wise) when he was a sub player for 3 seasons , playing 50% of the total mins and that too as a left winger, comparing his mins per goal record with Greenwood when one is playing in PL and other played against easy opponents (not taking anything away from Greenwood). Apart from that, Greenwood is playing as RW and that's where he looks comfortable as he struggled to play with his back to the goal.

Right now, Martial is by far our best CF and he is the only player who is capable of playing with his back to the goal.

He has 6 goal contributions in 616 mins in league, which is 102 mins per G+A.
8 goal contributions in 790 mins in total, which is 98 mins per G+A.

He has showed how good he is in creating chances too with his link up play. I don't know what happened behind the scenes but on the pitch this season he has done well and also in the previous 4 seasons when he got run of games.

He has started 9 games this season and contributed to 8 goals. Also he has scored or assisted in 7 games, that's a very good record.
 

Son

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Martial is the least of our problems. He’s been quality this season. Him and Rashford have been 2 of our best players.

He played bad at weekend but I can forgive it for the improvement he’s shown this season. He had a world class performance the other week if I remember right. Dribbling in tight spaces, holding up the ball, the lot.

I really want us to sign Haaland but to think he’s already better than Martial is probably naive. I hope Haaland can develop into the next Lewandoski but he’s 19 so a long way to go yet...
 

OL29

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Weird that so many are attacking him out of the blue, I thought he’d done something
 

UpWithRivers

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You can say this about most of our team. Loads of people are still waiting for Lingard to make it! We literally have one player who has been consistently world class or in the top bracket and thats De Gea. (except for his dip in form). De gea clean sweeping player of the year says it all except his one year his form dipped maybe because of contract. He's brilliant but thats an embarrassment to the other players. Literally every single other player is either past it, injury prone or we are waiting to see what they will become. No player is an established top level player that you can hang your hat on. Heck we dont even have players that are not top level but are consistently performing week in week out, year in year out like say Henderson. You know rock solid professionals that you can rely on.
Martial is just another one. Like Rashford no one knows his best position. Probably number 9 but he hasnt proved it. Its strange that Rashford and Martial dont seem to learn. They have had top coaching and management but they just havnt taken that next step up. Take Sterling he was erratic but you can see clearly he has been coached well and taken in all the advice and steped up a few gears. .Its damning that Marials previous coaches have criticized him and he can't get anywhere near the France team. Lets just hope him and Rashford dont end up like Lingard where we are still having these discussions in 3 years time.
 
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JPRouve

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But you know after 4 seasons Martial isnt consistent enough to be the main striker. Surely even with your blinkers on you can see that.
Blinkers have nothing to do with it, you are talking about 4 years between 19 and 23 years old. Players are rarely consistent during that age period, they are generally developping and inconsistent. Also Martial has only been given the opportunity to actually play as a striker this season, before that we tried to turn him into a wide player. So no I don't know because we are talking about a player relatively young who has mainly played out of position and done well.

And none of that prevents you from bringing other players and create competition but that's totally irrelevant to this thread or Martial.
 

roonster09

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But you know after 4 seasons Martial isnt consistent enough to be the main striker. Surely even with your blinkers on you can see that.
He wasn't main striker as we had Jose as manager and he wanted Lukaku and Zlatan as his strikers, nothing wrong with that. He played as left winger and won his place many times and finally got chances as CF.

He has started 9 games and contributed goal or assist in 7 games, total 8 goal contributions.
 

GBBQ

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Actually Ranieri is known for calling players out at least he has been doing it in France. And it was a tactical change, Martial entered the game as a wide forward and Monaco were under pressure at the end of the game so Jardim decided to bring an actual wide player in order to go with a 451 instead of a 433.

But if you want an example of Martial being called out, you have Deschamps, Deschamps is often around Monaco's training center allegedly once pulled him aside when he was training with the youth team and asked him what he was waiting for, that he needed to do everything at 100% if he wanted to maximize his potential.
I was just writing down the stories as they were being told, DT was the one I believe who said that Ranieri doesn't call people out. Also the context of the score in the match he was subbed off on wasn't mentioned. I assume he was what, 17?
 

amolbhatia50k

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You can say this about most of our team. Loads of people are still waiting for Lingard to make it! We literally have one player who has been consistently world class or in the top bracket and thats De Gea. (except for his dip in form). De gea clean sweeping player of the year says it all except his one year his form dipped maybe because of contract. He's brilliant but thats an embarrassment to the other players. Literally every single other player is either past it, injury prone or we are waiting to see what they will become. No player is an established top level player that you can hang your hat on. Heck we dont even have players that are not top level but are consistently performing week in week out, year in year out like say Henderson. You know rock solid professionals that you can rely on.
Martial is just another one. Like Rashford no one knows his best position. Probably number 9 but he hasnt proved it. Its strange that Rashford and Martial dont seem to learn. They have had top coaching and management but they just havnt taken that next step up. Take Sterling he was erratic but you can see clearly he has been coached well and taken in all the advice and steped up a few gears. .Its damning that Marials previous coaches have criticized him and he can't get anywhere near the France team. Lets just hope him and Rashford dont end up like Lingard where we are still having these discussions in 3 years time.
Except Rashford and Martial are two of our best performing players whereas Lingar is not. That's the difference. I'd personally like to see us identify the players we have who do peform - DDG, Martial, Pogba (may not be under our control), Rashford, James, AWB etc - and work improving on the others. Of course adding alternatives in attack is definitely important but rather than questioning our performers the focus would surely have to be on strengthening the collective to give the owns who do peform a better base.
 

JPRouve

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I was just writing down the stories as they were being told, DT was the one I believe who said that Ranieri doesn't call people out. Also the context of the score in the match he was subbed off on wasn't mentioned. I assume he was what, 17?
Yeah, I should have targetted DT. Martial was indeed 17 and Ranieri's comments were more his way to motivate and push young players, if DT actually followed Ranieri and in particular his time at Monaco he would have seen the same comments about Carrasco, Ocampos, Riviere, James and others he praised them too. Ranieri also recently said that Martial was his best signing at Monaco.
 

Bilbo

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Weird that so many are attacking him out of the blue, I thought he’d done something
Toxic fanbase. Who can we go after today?

Hes having a pretty decent season so far and the team are clearly better when he is playing, but hey lets all call him out for being not good enough because some things happened 3 or 4 years ago.
 

wolvored

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Blinkers have nothing to do with it, you are talking about 4 years between 19 and 23 years old. Players are rarely consistent during that age period, they are generally developping and inconsistent. Also Martial has only been given the opportunity to actually play as a striker this season, before that we tried to turn him into a wide player. So no I don't know because we are talking about a player relatively young who has mainly played out of position and done well.

And none of that prevents you from bringing other players and create competition but that's totally irrelevant to this thread or Martial.
All I am saying is we need a goalscorer who can hit the ground running and net 20+ a season. I get you are a martial fan that's why I said blinkered. I hope you are right and he turns into that striker, but in our predicament we cant afford to wait I only mentioned Greenwood as he has a better goalscoring record for minutes on the pitch. I know they play different styles, but the fact is we ain't got a prime goalscorer and I would give him a run of games to see what he can do
 

UpWithRivers

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I think everyone is missing the point. Martial is class. He has everything. Easily one of the performers of the season. Thats not the point. The point is why are we still debating if he will reach the top level. Why is he not getting in the France team. Why is he not POTY. Why is he not getting to top striker level - Its a big ask but we are talking about the Henry, Shearer, Aguero level. When will he score 20 goals a season. If everyone thought he was sht and a waste of time no one would be questioning him. Its because we all hold him in high regard and can see he has it in him to be that player. Whats holding him back. Yes he can be a good player and sometimes great. He already is. But can he be a truly great player.
 

Classical Mechanic

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I think everyone is missing the point. Martial is class. He has everything. Easily one of the performers of the season. Thats not the point. The point is why are we still debating if he will reach the top level. Why is he not getting in the France team.
It's a perfectly valid question given that his contract included a number of performance related clauses that Monaco thought would easily be met, including one for a Ballon D'Or nomination, yet nearly 5 years later only one of those clauses has actually been activated.
 

JPRouve

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All I am saying is we need a goalscorer who can hit the ground running and net 20+ a season. I get you are a martial fan that's why I said blinkered. I hope you are right and he turns into that striker, but in our predicament we cant afford to wait I only mentioned Greenwood as he has a better goalscoring record for minutes on the pitch. I know they play different styles, but the fact is we ain't got a prime goalscorer and I would give him a run of games to see what he can do
I'm not a Martial fan and I didn't argue about whether we should bring a goalscorer or not, and if you want my opinion I want us to bring an attacker that is in his prime. But if you want to make that point, you can go in the transfer thread and make your opinion known there instead of responding to a post that had nothing to do with that. As for Greenwood it's worth remembering that he scored against League one teams and a couple of terrible teams in Astana and Partizan, he also mainly played on the right wing. Martial mainly played against PL teams as a CF and currently has a good record.
 

JPRouve

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It's a perfectly valid question given that his contract included a number of performance related clauses that Monaco thought would easily be met, including one for a Ballon D'Or nomination, yet nearly 5 years later only one of those clauses has actually been activated.
Martial was unlikely to be nominated for a Ballon D'Or. First because we are talking about a player that didn't had a lot of games under his belt, he had a long way to go before becoming something. Secondly Martial was a striker and United decided to change his position, you don't really know how a player is going to adapt to that type of change or if he is going to adapt at all. It's also worth remembering that Martial wasn't a week in week out starter for Monaco, he was supposed to be one the season we purchased him, as a striker. We purchased a player with potential and a lot of development to be done.
 

Denis' cuff

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He's 24 in a few weeks, I'm not saying he's an OAP before people jump on me, but he's not 20 anymore. There's only so long we can point to the moments of brilliance. He's barely progressed since he got here. I desperately want him to fulfil his clear potential, but I'd be lying if I said I believe he will, at least at Utd.

People who talk like we shouldn't bring in another striker because we have him are quite frankly mad.

Many on here in love with the idea of what Martial could be, and not what he currently is. He's got all the materials to be very good, but is unbelievably frustrating.

I hope it can click for him, maybe with more quality around him, some better coaching, we'll see more from him.
Great (honest) post.

I’m sure it gets tiresome for some, using Fergie as a yardstick but y’know... he was the best ever and would not tolerate this weakness of character. I love the guy and his touches, his absolute skill that just comes naturally (could be talking about another French guy) but it just isn’t any good if it’s locked away until he feels like it. There has to be a dedication to match the skill level. Neither have it, sadly. We need to find that balance in every player.
 

jderbyshire

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I must admit, when we got hammered at Everton last season and Ole said that about "some of these players won't be part of our future success" - I thought Martial was a gonner (despite the fact he'd just signed a new contract) - Didn't think he fit the mould of the hard-working positive culture Ole wanted to instil in the squad.

Part of me wants to believe that Ole has seen the potential in Martial and thinks he can turn him into a world-beater.

But the other part of me knows the new contract was already agreed before Ole had his feet under the table and he had no say in the matter and has to work with what he's got.

Martial has been one of our better players this season though - and the interview/article from DT feels untimely, but he raises some valid points, and if you can't face constant scrutiny, pressure, criticism, competition, etc. then you don't have what it takes to be a Manchester United player.
 

Beachryan

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It's kind of truism: he has the talent to be one of the best, but he is clearly not one of the best - therefore something else is wrong.

There's no short list of talented footballers who didn't make it as a pro.

He's our best CF at present, so should start every match up front. But if there's an option for someone else, I'd take it.
 

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He's got the intangibles to be an absolute star. He's got the best technique in the squad, bar Pogba. His decision making is often quite good. He doesn't mis-place passes often. His finishing is great. The sum of the whole is great in every respect, yet, the whole is wholly inadequate.

He's the equivalent of 2+2 somehow not making 4.

:confused:
 

Jeppers7

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Our front three have been devastating this season when playing together. We need some like for like cover and we need to accept they are all young and learning but the benefits in a couple of years could be huge. We need to focus on other areas of the pitch.

Martial had been very good this season.
 

Champagne Football

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Moussa Dembele? People don't really seem to rate him. Very doubtful a player of that level would resign martial to the bench.
I think he'd be brought in to bring competition to Martial, with the view that Greenwood will be the main man a couple of years down the line.
I think Moussa Dembele is our Plan B If Erling doesn't come.
Martial is breathtaking on his day but he lacks consistency to be a starter long term, unless he can take his game up a level.
Inconsistent players don't last too long in first XI's. Ozil, Mata, Nani, Lamela, Mkhitarian, Bale, Dier, Ousmane Dembele etc
 

IRELANDUNITED

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He's 24 in a few weeks, I'm not saying he's an OAP before people jump on me, but he's not 20 anymore. There's only so long we can point to the moments of brilliance. He's barely progressed since he got here. I desperately want him to fulfil his clear potential, but I'd be lying if I said I believe he will, at least at Utd.

People who talk like we shouldn't bring in another striker because we have him are quite frankly mad.

Many on here in love with the idea of what Martial could be, and not what he currently is. He's got all the materials to be very good, but is unbelievably frustrating.

I hope it can click for him, maybe with more quality around him, some better coaching, we'll see more from him.
Agree 100%
 

DWelbz19

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Weird that so many are attacking him out of the blue, I thought he’d done something
It's this weird obsession this forum has had over the last few years of wilderness -- to attack the best players, but end up defending the talentless lionhearts.
 

Jonno

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Our front three have been devastating this season when playing together. We need some like for like cover and we need to accept they are all young and learning but the benefits in a couple of years could be huge. We need to focus on other areas of the pitch.

Martial had been very good this season.
In patches though. As he's always done. He is equally as good as he is bad. He will rip a team apart one week and then go annonymous when we depend on him the next week.

That's not good enough. It's the fact he downs tools that bothers me the most. When things don't go his way, he stops making runs, stops showing for the ball, he strolls around the pitch looking uninterested. So frustrating for us as we know he does have the ability to rip teams apart.
 

VeevaVee

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Daniel Taylor is too polite and lacks concrete opinions, so it wasnt an attack on Martial. He basically just questioned if he has the attitude to be the next Henry, or whether he will be just a good to sometimes very good player.

  • A United player told him off record that Martial skipped a Norwich game based on an injury, but trained the next day.
  • He found quotes from Ranieri in the french press questioning Martial.
  • Jardim subbed him on at 60min in a televised game, and then took him off after 80min. Apparently he found it hard to motivate him.
  • Mourinho wanted him to perform, but ultimately wanted him out as he couldnt motivate him.
  • He's pulled out of French squads, but played for United the next week.
  • Nobody in France is talking about him.
Cheers :)
 

amolbhatia50k

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I think he'd be brought in to bring competition to Martial, with the view that Greenwood will be the main man a couple of years down the line.
I think Moussa Dembele is our Plan B If Erling doesn't come.
Martial is breathtaking on his day but he lacks consistency to be a starter long term, unless he can take his game up a level.
Inconsistent players don't last too long in first XI's. Ozil, Mata, Nani, Lamela, Mkhitarian, Bale, Dier, Ousmane Dembele etc
He's been consistent this season.

We don't even know if Dembele is good enough for this level let alone consistent.