Its his wider variety of finishing thats the difference. Martial just doesn't shoot enough. He doesnt use the space to get quick shots away, for example. Picture a Martial goal and hes either 1 on 1 v the keeper or side footing it into the corner on his right foot.
Mason backs up the defenders because he can go either way and gets his shot away quickly with the space he creates. He can place it or slap it in from 20 yards and doesnt need to be behind the defensive line to do it.
Ive praised Martial on here, Im a huge fan of his. Mason being two footed with the threat we will have down both flanks is a huge plus in his favour.
In also not saying do it tomorrow but another 8 months of this rate of progression for Mason will see him leapfrog Anthony in that timeframe imo.
Ruud Van Nistelrooy was a deadly finisher and his best period at utd was during the Beckham era because utd used to create so many chances every game and get the ball in to the box at every opportunity and Ruud used to feast, but when we signed a young Ronaldo, the crosses stopped coming in, because a lot of the time he was more selfish and Ruud made so many runs in to the box and the cross never came in and this frustrated Ruud so much, in the end he ended up leaving because Sir Alex, decided he wanted to go with a fluid front three with Rooney, Ronaldo and Saha to obviously get the best out of them all especially Ronaldo. Saha and his link up and was a very big reason why Ronaldo took the next step in his career and Ronaldo did not have to become your typical "cross the ball in to the box winger" instead he became a wide forward.
Greenwood obviously has more to his game than just finishing but at this moment absolutely everything going forward for Utd involved Martial linking up with the whole forward line, his brilliant link up with Rashford, Bruno, Pogba and even Greenwood himself and his strength to hold the ball up, lead the press and involve his teammates.
If you review the season you will notice that every one of our front five had their best period when Martial was in the team and when he was not in the team or starting we struggled mightily yet you will notice that irrespective of who he played with Martial was always consistent this season.
Now the question I ask you is that considering that we don't really create chances without the link up play of Martial being involved, do you think that Mason is ready to be the main centre forward next season at this stage of his development and relative inexperience? I doubt it because finishing is not everything and there are a lot of games where he is quiet and can't seem to get himself involved in the game but the one thing I have noticed about Martial this season is that he tries to remain involved in everything and his back to goal play has improved exponentially and that is mainly because of his good close control and he does not allow defenders to bully him, I am not saying that Mason cannot do the same but the sample size is few and far between and until he has more games as a centre forward, I would not proclaim him as our new number 9 just yet. He will be , just not yet.