When Martial returns...

TRUERED89

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I’d prefer Rashford on the right with a roaming role.

He’s always been better shooting with his right across goal to the left also.

Plus being a bit of a kick and run merchant he can head down the line and cross with his right if required.
He's actually a decent crosser, his ball for Pogba's header at Stamford Bridge last season still sticks out to me. Rashford should go RW for a couple games, see how it goes.
 

Rinnegan240

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We shall try James - Martial - Greenwood combo with Rashford on the bench. Greenwood may be on penalty duty
Greenwood on penalty duty? Good God no! Rather Martial because if he misses the press could slaughter him.

Wouldn't want that at this stage in his development.
 

Alemar

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Greenwood on penalty duty? Good God no! Rather Martial because if he misses the press could slaughter him.
He will score. And Martial already missed a penalty for us in the past. Now, it’s not about “his development”, it’s about actually scoring penalties.
 

Volumiza

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I am wishing Ole would switch to an out and out 4,3,3 now. This would help Pogba also but would allow us to have a front 3 of:

James Martial Rashford
It's the best option in my opinion and will allow all 3 to share the responsibility more than just having one striker
 

Adam-Utd

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He's actually a decent crosser, his ball for Pogba's header at Stamford Bridge last season still sticks out to me. Rashford should go RW for a couple games, see how it goes.
Yes that's true.

Also when we played the diamond he ran the right side channel pretty well, so not much difference.
 

CR1

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Just play a 4-4-2 with James and Pereira on the wings, James being more attacking and Pereira slightly more withdrawn. Pereira, Rashford and AWB could share the responsibility of providing width on the right in such a formation.

Yes I know Pereira didn't play well in the last game but the fact of the matter is we don't really have many options on the right, especially with Dalot injured.

I'd try Chong but Pereira helps out more defensively and in the build-up. And I don't like a midfield two of McTominay and Pogba as both of them are better when playing further forward and with Pereira in there they could at least be a little more adventurous. Gomes and Mata are both central players while Lingard should start on the bench. Greenwood is an obvious candidate on the right but then we'd have to bench one of James, Martial and Rashford.

------Martial Rashford--------
James Pogba McTominay Pereira
Shaw Maguire Lindelöf AWB
------------DDG---------------

Anyway James as well as the other attackers will need to be rested/rotated at some point and then this issue will disappear. But long term I'm not sure there will be a place for all three of James, Martial and Rashford in the starting line-up. I don't see Ole dropping Rashford on the back of a few poor performances though.
 

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Just play a 4-4-2 with James and Pereira on the wings, James being more attacking and Pereira slightly more withdrawn. Pereira, Rashford and AWB could share the responsibility of providing width on the right in such a formation.

Yes I know Pereira didn't play well in the last game but the fact of the matter is we don't really have many options on the right, especially with Dalot injured.

I'd try Chong but Pereira helps out more defensively and in the build-up. And I don't like a midfield two of McTominay and Pogba as both of them are better when playing further forward and with Pereira in there they could at least be a little more adventurous. Gomes and Mata are both central players while Lingard should start on the bench. Greenwood is an obvious candidate on the right but then we'd have to bench one of James, Martial and Rashford.

------Martial Rashford--------
James Pogba McTominay Pereira
Shaw Maguire Lindelöf AWB
------------DDG---------------

Anyway James as well as the other attackers will need to be rested/rotated at some point and then this issue will disappear. But long term I'm not sure there will be a place for all three of James, Martial and Rashford in the starting line-up. I don't see Ole dropping Rashford on the back of a few poor performances though.
Pereira has no business in the first XI at Manchester United.
 

afrocentricity

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Definitely Rashford on the right, alot of his greed comes from wanting to cut in and shoot. On the right he will be forced more to provide
He's a striker though, you want him to shoot (and score) more than provide...
James—-Martial—-Rashford
Pogba—Gomez—McTominay
Young-Harry--Lindelof-AWB
——————DDG——————

It has to be that...
:lol:

You just know that pisses off half the cafe...
 
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POF

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He will score. And Martial already missed a penalty for us in the past. Now, it’s not about “his development”, it’s about actually scoring penalties.
Greenwood got taken off penalties for the u18s due to missing too many and was replaced by Levitt. There is no way he will take a penalty for the first team in the near future.
 

Dec9003

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Sense. I agree.

Though, crap as he's been, I dunno who really can step into the RW slot and do better than Rashford there...
I think in an ideal world Greenwood would step up and make the position his own.
He's not even a right winger either really though.
The likely scenario will be that we're still stuck with Lingard, Mata and Pereira there until we buy a right winger, although we seem completely adverse to that for some reason.
 

CR1

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Pereira has no business in the first XI at Manchester United.
I'm inclined to agree with that, but given the lack of investments in the CDM position during the transfer window we are now in a situation where squad players become first XI.
 

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James is a better LW than Rashford and he also has more potential as a LW.
Martial is a better 9 than Rashford.
So far Greenwood has shown more from the right than Rashford.

So it's simple.

James - Martial - Greenwood
---------- Gomes ------------
--- Pogba ------- Mctominay
-Shaw-Maguire - Lindelof - AWB
---------- De Gea -------------

Buy a quality #10 , CM and RW next summer.
 

Ole90+3

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I don't mind giving Greenwood a start at the RW spot but people pretending that he's shown any real contribution at all to the first team needs to wire in to reality.
 

VP89

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I don't mind giving Greenwood a start at the RW spot but people pretending that he's shown any real contribution at all to the first team needs to wire in to reality.
He'd likely offer more than Pereira did there.
 

VP89

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It would be near on impossible to contribute less that Pereira. Rashford on the other hand has shown the capability to be a weapon when he hits a bit of form.
And yet Greenwood barely played in the last fixture. You don't need hindsight to know that's a poor move.
 

Ole90+3

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And yet Greenwood barely played in the last fixture. You don't need hindsight to know that's a poor move.
There's a reason why Greenwood isn't playing. Granted he hasn't had much time to impress but he had almost a full half against Palace in a game in which he contributed nothing. He hasn't shown enough to warrant a starting space over the likes of Rashford although I'd understand why the manager would drop Rashford for the next fixture given his recent form. Either way it's not looking great for us. But we all knew that the lack of investment in the right side of our attack was a monumentally stupid decision which we are already suffering from and the season is less than a month old.
 

VP89

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There's a reason why Greenwood isn't playing. Granted he hasn't had much time to impress but he had almost a full half against Palace in a game in which he contributed nothing. He hasn't shown enough to warrant a starting space over the likes of Rashford although I'd understand why the manager would drop Rashford for the next fixture given his recent form. Either way it's not looking great for us. But we all knew that the lack of investment in the right side of our attack was a monumentally stupid decision which we are already suffering from and the season is less than a month old.
It's not based from half a game from Palace though. Its from Ole's consistent hype and integration since pre season. Greenwood has been prominent in our plans and we have been briefed to expect him as back up to Rashford / martial should one get injured. And yet, martial is injured and Pereira started. Pereira offered feck all, or even less than Greenwood did versus Palace. It was just weird to see a player hyped up, briefed to be a Lukaku replacement in terms of goal contribution and then not feature ahead of a centre mid in a front 3.
 

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James has made the left wing his position to lose. His low center of gravity means its hard to get the ball off of him even if he is cutting in to shoot. If he can add a few basic variations in crossing with his left foot, he'd be set for an excellent career.

This is what I wish to see when Marital comes back:

James Martial Mata
Pogba Fred McTominay
Shaw Maguire Lindelöf AWB
deGea
It more or less becomes a diamond as Mata will inevitably drift inside and add numbers, hopefully him and Pogba can exploit the spaces left behind with Martial and James up the pitch.
Rashford, Chong, Gomes and Greenwood as impact subs and Matic when needing to protect a lead on the bench.
 

Walters_19_MuFc

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Ole won’t start Greenwood. He couldn’t start him even with Martial out, can’t see him starting when he’s back.
Depends. Don't think he'd start him, Martial and Rashford together, as it'd mean no strikers to come from the bench.

If we were to get another striker, then we could have a matchday squad of say:

Rashford Martial Greenwood
Pogba Fred McTominay
Shaw Maguire Lindelof Wan-Bissaka
De Gea


Romero Tuanzebe Young Matic Lingard James Striker
 

bosnian_red

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Rashford was fine on the left with Martial through the middle though. Missing a penalty doesn't mean he played poorly. In fact his only bad performance this season was playing as a CF with Martial out. He certainly won't be pushed out to the right for James on the left, James had similar level performances on both sides and can do the right just fine.
 

Rozay

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Depends. Don't think he'd start him, Martial and Rashford together, as it'd mean no strikers to come from the bench.

If we were to get another striker, then we could have a matchday squad of say:

Rashford Martial Greenwood
Pogba Fred McTominay
Shaw Maguire Lindelof Wan-Bissaka
De Gea


Romero Tuanzebe Young Matic Lingard James Striker
Heard this one a few times. It may also mean we don’t have to keep bringing on a striker from the bench every single match to try and win points for us because we might actually get the job done with the first XI if they have sufficient attacking threat.

Alternatively, we could continue with the game plan of starting Andreas/Lingard and then bringing on a forward with 10 to go to try and win the game in injury time.
 

KennyBurner

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Martial is a better no.9 than Rashford (although Greenwood is possibly far better than either).
James is already looking like a far better (left) winger than Rashford could ever dream of being.

Conclusion: Rashford is either stuck out on the right, or he's dropped. Simple.
This is a very bold comment so i ask you, what is it based off? I dont know how one can think greenwood has the same talent as martial.
 

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For me our best 11 was always Rashford off the right, James left and Martial centre, and that was before I’d even seen it in action.

But for gods sake, can we try Gomes behind them? How many more times does he have to take the piss in the under 23s before he gets a shot?
 

Walters_19_MuFc

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Heard this one a few times. It may also mean we don’t have to keep bringing on a striker from the bench every single match to try and win points for us because we might actually get the job done with the first XI if they have sufficient attacking threat.

Alternatively, we could continue with the game plan of starting Andreas/Lingard and then bringing on a forward with 10 to go to try and win the game in injury time.
Alternatively, we should have bought a forward or kept one of Sanchez or Lukaku.
 

Rozay

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Alternatively, we should have bought a forward or kept one of Sanchez or Lukaku.
Indeed. However, I’d rather that in the event of not doing that, we use the forwards we have before playing Pereira and the likes. We have struggled to score goals for years as it is.
 

stepic

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rash to the right. he and james can switch sides from time to time during the game, too.
 

DoomSlayer

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So Martial is supposed to be back by October 19th and that would make it an almost 2 month absence due to the injury.

He is slowly becoming a part of our injury prone players, which is unfortunate and very bad for us as the club has put a lot of faith on him being one of our main men. This season is supposed to be a defining one for him, no more excuses allowed.
 

Rozay

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So Martial is supposed to be back by October 19th and that would make it an almost 2 month absence due to the injury.

He is slowly becoming a part of our injury prone players, which is unfortunate and very bad for us as the club has put a lot of faith on him being one of our main men. This season is supposed to be a defining one for him, no more excuses allowed.
The fact that we don’t play a match for 2 weeks is what will make it 2 months. He’s due back on the 19th because we don’t play on the 5th.

Also, him being injured and unable to play would be a pretty valid excuse for not becoming the main man.
 

DoomSlayer

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The fact that we don’t play a match for 2 weeks is what will make it 2 months. He’s due back on the 19th because we don’t play on the 5th.

Also, him being injured and unable to play would be a pretty valid excuse for not becoming the main man.
Being injury prone can't be an excuse, or else the likes of Jones, Shaw, Bailly, Rojo and other previous players should be given the benefit of the doubt as well. Number 9 on the back, £200/£250k p/w salary - as I said, no more excuses and I really want Martial to succeed but the reality is not flattering so far.
 

davidmichael

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Can’t come soon enough, I know dropping Rashford won’t happen right now because of our limited options and how big the Liverpool game is but I’d happily see us play Martial through the middle with James on the left and Greenwood on the right following that.

I think Rashford needs a few games on the bench to motivate him as right now it’s almost like he knows he’ll start regardless and is very much going through the motions, James has been great from the left for club and country whilst Greenwood has looked lively from the right and is a good introduction to first team football.
 

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Rash on the bench as soon as Martial is back. James is miles better than Rashford from the left. Martial is clearly a vastly better no.9 even if he doesn't turn up half the time. So shoe horn Rashford in on the right if anything.

With everyone fit it is beyond obvious that we have to be playing Martial up front and James on the left. Then you're rotating all the shitters on the right wing, be that Pereira, Lingard or Rashford. Whoever is least useless.
Happy with all that. Rashford surely the best option on the right. At least he does something sometimes.