Rashford and Martial are a problem

lsd

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Martial was SO bad in that first half that Harry felt the need to constantly make a run into the box. Embarrassing from Martial yet again.

Rashford is nowhere near as bad. It’s not favouritism it’s just a basic observation.

Martial did feckin nothing in that game. Its effectively playing with 10 men.

I honestly hope Ole moves him on in the next window. I would be more than happy to see him leave as long as we had a replacement (which isn’t hard as you could pick anybody with legs and a desire to run.)

It's worse it's like playing with 9 men as having Martial on the right puts Rashford on the left where he is ineffective
 

Godfather

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His effort is absolutely appalling, to the point that he's statistically one of the laziest forwards in football. He's quite literally in the bottom 1% of Wide Forwards/AMs from ALL of the Big 5 leagues combined, across multiple effort categories... and rarely even comes CLOSE to average across any metric.


Somehow even Martial is putting up better effort stats. It's hard to overstate how little Rashford does off ball in a defensive sense. The only 'Green' in the entire image is from players absolutely blowing by him because he doesn't even attempt to tackle them.

I still think Rashford is clearly preferable to Martial, due to being more impactful on the ball, but that's much more of an indictment on Martial than a positive for Rashford. They've both become huge problems for us.
I hope this puts an end to the myth that Rashford is actually hardworking. He is not. Neither is Martial for the record. Look at Mane. Now that's a guy that puts a shift in
 

Reddevildans

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I'm actually quite disappointed in both. Let's be honest since the end of last season Martial has been shocking and Rashford has been incredibly frustrating and inconsistent. Martial has lost all confidence and nothing seems to be coming off for him. I don't think age has anything to do with it now. Both are reasonably experienced now. We don't see them linking up as we used to and both seem to think they are the finished article.
 

dinostar77

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Playing devils advocate, should blame not also lie with Ole and the coaching stuff? What tactical prep is being done if any? We know Mourinho is obsessive when it comes to tactical prep and working on the opposition weaknesses. Example was at anfield and the lukaku flickons for Rashford to score. A weakness was identified and worked on. You dont see that with Utd under Ole. Maybe Rashford and Martial need that guidance and instruction?

Fergie in his last season did alot of work on opposition weaknesses. There were training drills specific for the opposition and their weaknesses. On the other hand Wenger for example at Arsenal never did. His belief was Arsenal would play their own game and be superior to the opposition.
 

NinjaZombie

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I'd say it would have the actual complete opposite effect. Who is going to take him on the kind of salary he's on? The only way to move him is to get a stretch of good performances and even then it'd be tricky to get him to take a pay cut with his next team since I can't see anybody who would even get close to what United is paying him.
Easier from a fan PR perspective. Besides, Sanchez stunk up the place worse than Martial and we still managed to get rid of him. I reckon we can just take a loss when selling him.

All this is moot if the rumours that he is one of the Glazers' favourite players and selling him is not option are true though.
 

Bastian

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Martial is a problem for Rashford. He's not good enough to be a #9 and Rashford is easily the better option on the left. The talent is there in abundance but there's so much lacking still.
 

Rilz

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Why are we sacrificing one of the best attacking players we have (Rashford) so martial can pretend to be a football player on the left wing ?

I love ole but today was all on him
 
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All this is moot if the rumours that he is one of the Glazers' favourite players and selling him is not option are true though.
Those rumors made complete sense back in 2018 when Martial was young, performing reasonably well, and Mourinho's idea of a replacement was a crap 30-something plodder like Willian.

If Martial plays like this for the rest of the season, refusing to sell him on the owners' whims would be plain idiocy.

And yes, Greenwood has been looking miles sharper than he has in the last few games, so it made zero sense to leave him out at the start today. At this point it's probably even worth sticking James on the right before starting Martial.
 

Sayros

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Easier from a fan PR perspective. Besides, Sanchez stunk up the place worse than Martial and we still managed to get rid of him. I reckon we can just take a loss when selling him.

All this is moot if the rumours that he is one of the Glazers' favourite players and selling him is not option are true though.
I think I could understand for him to be a favorite of theirs in the past because he wasn't getting a fair shot and was pretty productive when he did get his opportunities. I can't see how he'd still be their favorite right now; I'd feel like I'm getting robbed if I were them at this point.
 

Luke1995

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At what point do we stop expecting them to hit 20+ goals per season ?

I'd say that given the amount of years they've been here, they should be expected to do that.

It is not as straightforward however, because over that time, there have been changes of manager and obviously changes in the squad and playing style.

I think these changes can affect young players developments
 

Womp

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I'm conflicted, I really don't know how much blame we can put on them. The whole squad bar probably three to four players in Shaw, Cavani and sometimes Bruno/Pogba have been out of form. Not sure how much of a finger we can point at individuals when the majority of the team is playing shite
 

Cloud7

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Once upon a time I would have said we would need to think carefully about bringing in someone like Graelish whose best position is LW because of Rashford and Martial both being better out there. At this point I would say bring him in and drop them both to the bench.
 

MyDevil

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The issue I have with Rashford is his decision makings but at least he tried and Ole is playing him out of his favoured position to accommodate Martial. I am lost of words with Martial. He should not be a starter if Greenwood or even Mata is fit. We can afford one player playing shit but not both. This is all on Ole.
 

ghaliboy

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4 new wide players need to come in and squeeze both of these guys back up front. Two starters and two players in behind those starters. Essentially they both need to go to a "we have nobody else to play wide, can one of you do us a solid and play wide" rather them both being strikers who start out wide and are also required to play up front as first and second choice players as well.
 

Will Singh

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It’s worrying that them 2 along with Greenwood were ripping defences apart last season and were looked at as one of the best attacks in the PL. Fast forward this season and there now looking the worst.
 

Asger

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Why are we sacrificing one of the best attacking players we have (Rashford) so martial can pretend to be a football player on the left wing ?

I love ole but today was all on him
Rashy is only good when we can counter attack. Against teams that sits back he is useless.
 

He'sRaldo

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All 3 forwards outperformed their xg last season. This season, all our forwards are struggling in some fashion.

When something like that happens, I wouldn't so quickly point the finger at the players.
 

GioF

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The issue is not rashy and martial, its just martial

He is lazy, soft, miserable and disinterested.

Drop martial, move rashy to the left and greenwood to the right.

Oles perserverance with martial is totally unjust. Diallo should be given some game time
Unfortunately it is. He’s been so bad recently with his decision making and attitude not being good enough. When asked to play on the right he has looked like he can’t be arsed at times. The amount of times he’s 1 on 1 with his fullback your dying for him to attack with conviction but he’s just not doing it recently.

What worry’s me is if he will take his game to the next level now....he’s proven to be a really good player with massive potential but I’d love to see him kick on now and become the player we look to in big games and when somethings on the line. Like yesterday when we were playing poor your hoping someone can do something special and drag us out the shit but i don’t look at Marcus as being someone who will do that for us.

Martial when on form is breathtaking but anyone with a pair of eyes can see he has looked god awful since the restart. The irony was he finished last year as one of our best players. Unfortunately he’s another who going to not live up to the potential he has. All down to attitude.

The likes of Beckham/Ronaldo etc would try and try (even if having a bag game) but one cross or one shot could win you the game. Martial to me seems like if he has a poor/quiet first ten minutes you may as well right him off for the game.
 

Oranges038

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I've said it before. The main problem with these two is that they lack the brains and game intelligence to make clever runs and create spaces for themselves and others.

In some scenarios they can be coached or where to run and triggers etc. for when to move to a certain areas. But on the pitch too many times they are just standing there looking lost, they just haven't got the footballing brains to see runs and space.

Take Martial for example, yesterday he spent most of his time slightly in off the left wing looking for the ball to feet. For a defence that is sitting deep and central, that is too easy to defend against.
 

redshaw

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Has the presence of Cavani upset Martial? Seem to have a similar thing going on when Ibra was here.

Instead of learning off top players and taking the challenge he sulks. Same when Sanchez was here. We're just down to hoping something clicks in the second half of the season for him.

With Rashford he can still offer something and has some back pain issues. Martial off the back of last season to go this long is really a problem and both when off form have similar issues. We saw Martial link up well with Bruno last year with intricate passes, I've seen him pass well but both can get stuck in this counter attack mode and trying to dribble through and simply running into defenders over and over and end up offering nothing in attack.
 

abkmufc92

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Mourinho had it right when we was rotating these two, our team is not good enough to carry both of these players underperforming week in week out.
 

alexthelion

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How do they go from scoring loads last year to this shit?
Could it be, and I'm just throwing this out there, that they have regressed this season because there is less time in between matches for Ole and the coaches to drum their ideas into them and Martial/Rashford are regressing to what they were before?-
 

POF

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His effort is absolutely appalling, to the point that he's statistically one of the laziest forwards in football. He's quite literally in the bottom 1% of Wide Forwards/AMs from ALL of the Big 5 leagues combined, across multiple effort categories... and rarely even comes CLOSE to average across any metric.


Somehow even Martial is putting up better effort stats. It's hard to overstate how little Rashford does off ball in a defensive sense. The only 'Green' in the entire image is from players absolutely blowing by him because he doesn't even attempt to tackle them.

I still think Rashford is clearly preferable to Martial, due to being more impactful on the ball, but that's much more of an indictment on Martial than a positive for Rashford. They've both become huge problems for us.
That is incredible. It did surprise me how poor those stats are but really shouldn't based on watching his effort levels.

Neither Rashford nor Martial contribute anything without the ball and are both really inconsistent offensively.

Martial is much more of a worry long term. When he's out of form and under pressure for his spot, his head drops and his performances get worse. A player with that mentality just won't thrive at a big club. Rashford at least is more strong willed.
 

Foxbatt

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why can't the coaching staff get them to get into the right positions( for Martial) and Rashford to pass and not to try and take on the entire defense?
 

wolvored

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Easier from a fan PR perspective. Besides, Sanchez stunk up the place worse than Martial and we still managed to get rid of him. I reckon we can just take a loss when selling him.

All this is moot if the rumours that he is one of the Glazers' favourite players and selling him is not option are true though.
Bench him completely like Mata would probably force him to ask to leave. The trouble is you dont know if joel Glazer is telling Ole via Woody he has to play most games, as thats the only explanation I can think of, (and I'm only half joking at this present time) him keep getting picked. Surely its obvious to Ole he isnt going to play himself back into any form like he was this time last season.
 

Silverman

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We should at least play Rashford left and Martial on the right.
Martial is doing nothing on the left so give it to Rashford where he performs better.
 

Judas

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The constant sacrificing of Rashford is baffling when it benefits no one. It's not as if Martial is grabbing the opportunity on the left, he's doing nothing in that position.

I dare say if we'd dropped him awhile ago we might have had some better results lately. Rashford/Cavani/Greenwood looked great against Liverpool in the cup, I've struggled ever since to understand why we've not stuck with it.
 

Littlinho

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Heard Scholesy defending Martial saying he likes him, he's just short on confidence but he's trying his best!? Martial is the laziest player on the team and should be nowhere near the starting line up, you can't be a Man Utd player and spend most of your time "off form". Perfect player for Spurs or Arsenal!
 

Forevergiggs1

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All 3 forwards outperformed their xg last season. This season, all our forwards are struggling in some fashion.

When something like that happens, I wouldn't so quickly point the finger at the players.
Although there might be other circumstances the finger should nearly always be pointed towards the player. Martial is a very weak character which has been proven time and again. When he has to fight for his place he just downs tools. Absolutely no heart.

Rashford looks a million miles away from enjoying his football. Once again it's down to personal mentality whatever else is happening behind the scenes.

Greenwood has had his problems this season but he looks like he's finally coming out of his slump.
 

Samid

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It's a miracle we're second in the league and top scorers with these two passengers in the team.
 

wr8_utd

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Genuinely not understood how Rashford is rated. A top team should do so so much better.
 

PoTMS

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He's now stopped scoring to cover his incompetent performances. Now he's just plain shite. Someone needs to kick a boot at him.