Yeah, neither he or Martial look comfortable in the positions they played tonight. Feels a bit like Ole is trying to play Martial back into form and maybe thinks by not having him up top relieves the pressure a bit?
Doesn’t help that out right is so lacking in attacking quality. There’s not exactly loads of options there.
But... top of the league, won a scrappy game. Can’t care about it too much right now!
Yeah that's what it feels like to me but I don't like the logic of disrupting the team to try and shoehorn an underperforming player in. If Martial can't play on the right he should be competing with Cavani and Rashford for the other two spots. It shouldn't be someone else taking the fall for his poor form as all that does is weaken the whole team.
Greenwood is probably our most comfortable right sided attacker but we seem completely reluctant to play him.
I'm not complaining too much as we keep getting results but I think the last couple of games it's noticably made things a lot more difficult than they needed to be. Against City in particular our attack lacked any kind of cohesion, and we actually got the ball to them enough to have won that game if they were more in tune.
His competition has been Dan James. Let’s not make out Rashford has been elite Ronaldo on the left .
Doesn’t look like Pellestri or Diallo can play left either.
So we basically need a LW now inside of a RW
He's clearly been one of our best players when he's playing from the left, and if his competion is just Dan James, how come neither Dan James or Rashford were playing from the left last night or against City?
It's the right where we're still short. Rashford is very good from the left and we have others who can fill in when he is injured or rested. The right we only really have Greenwood who looks remotely comfortable, and James who at least provides width but is mostly ineffective there as soon as teams sit back.
Because Martial is completely useless there and Rashford’s at least got the good grace and character to at least try his best to carve out a role
Yeah I don't disagree, but we have Greenwood who could have played there. James who like Rashford will at least try and show positional discipline. If Martial is underperforming the solution is to drop him. We have enough good forward players not to be dicking around with them trying to force things really. If you pick all of them in their preferred roles they're good enough that it doesn't matter if only one or two are actually in form.