That’s not really a fair or accurate reflection though. When, like Firminho, Martial plays in the centre of a front 3 (which has been rare due to injury) - his link play is similarly top notch. Hence the ‘Martial is our most important attacker’ thread. He was knitting things together up top and linking with Rashford and James very well. People were referring to him as a ‘false 9’. Due to Rashford’s injury, we could barely rub two other decent attackers together, and he has been played in a 2 more often.
I think it's entirely fair. Ability wise there is no problem with Martial, but I find him an extremely frustrating player because positionally he is both selfish and not very smart. It's not necessarily a problem having a selfish attacking player if they know how to channel that into scoring more goals, but with Martial it seems to be the opposite. When he is in the middle he is a constant goal threat, yet he insists on having games where he just prats around on the left wing, not even getting into the box when he clearly has time to do so.
He isn't our most important attacking player for me. Rashford very clearly was before his injury and Fernandes clearly has been since he signed. Martial is someone I like but for me is still looking to fulfil his potential. Without Fernandes and in the absence of Rashford we would still be struggling to win a game imo.
I don't see him as a Firminho type player at all. Martial's link up play can be very good, but he plays with a selfish streak, and if he just channelled that into doing what he needs to in order to score more, I think he could easily get 25 goals a year. Similar to what Rashford would have been on his way to prior to his injury.
If he gets to 20 this year I'd still be fairly happy as it's his first season playing solely as an out and out striker, and he did also miss a good 2 months with injury.