I think it’s the whole Martial FC nonsense. People are overcompensating because he used to get a lot of support that they felt was probably unjustified imo.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 48
- Goals
- 23
- Assists
- 8
- Yellow cards
- 1
- Status
People don't dislike him "just because". We've had plenty of players over the years with a reason to dislike them, Martial is not among them
People (me included) get on his back because he is infuriatingly inconsistent and the gulf between his top level and bottom level is one of the biggest i've seen. Additionally there seems to be no rhyme or reason to his drop in performances. Players when in poor form usually has 5-10 matches where they under perform somewhat, but Martial can switch from brilliant to useless from game to game.
Lastly, he has e tendency to make the difficult stuff look easy and the easy stuff look impossible, which want me to pull my hair out, Vs Watford for example, Greenwood(?) but a great ball between the defense and the keeper that only needed a foot on it to be a goal and Martial is not on to it and is just hanging around at 12 meters and jogging lightly in front of their CB
5 minutes later and he scores that delicious chip
No it's not. A player playing through injury won't play nearly a full game without a single complaint.
As for my post why are talking as if I'm the only one who criticized him this match to be agenda driven? The thread is full of people who labeled him his performance pathetic and slaughtered him even more than me. Why do you decided to choose me out of all of them to have an agenda against him? I said nothing more than it is his routine which is true. The lad never plays more than 3 matches in a row with the same performance. Yes, he's quality on his day but he's still very inconsistent at age 24.
Fair enough we all have an opinion. I just don’t see yours.
I just think his wrongs are getting over sensationalised once again by public opinion. If Roy Keane has a go at you fans are more likely to jump onboard the criticism.
I dont really give a toss about what Keane thinks.
Take a look at this video and pay attention to Martial (I know, its Bruno highlights, but its all i could find)
The positions he takes up are so weird for a LCF. Either hes standing still right in front of one or two CB's which makes him super easy to mark, or he has drifted out wide and is hugging the touchline. Like at the clip at 5:09. Unless hes been instructed too (which i find unlikely). What on earth is he doing out there when there is acres of space down the middle and no one there? Another one at 5:22. Lightly jogging in front of the defense. That's incredibly easy to deal with for the defenders
Another one at 5:33 when Bruno jumps over the ball and Greenwood jumps over the ball. To be fair to Martial, he busts a gut here to get forward, but his starting position is just weird. He has drifted wide (again), but is about 5 meters behind their offside line. Because he is rapid as feck, he gets on the ball in the end and takes a shot, but had his positioning been better here this could have been a goal
And this is not an isolated example. When he (Martial) is poor, him barely getting involved is a very common theme. Martials physical and technical attributes are top notch, his positioning, movement and (arguably) his work ethic are awful at times
He is an amazing player on his day, but not somebody to be relied upon to win us titles, if united want to build a league winning team, they should seriously think about selling Martial in the summer.
Noticed this and most are from second half where he was playing on left side. First half he was more central and team was playing well with the diamond formation. When they came out for second half Mason was CF and Martial LW, some smart coach has decided to move away from diamond formation with 2 forwards which worked so well in first half. Everton defence was not able to cope with first half against the same united team, so why change formation? Keen to know who made this decision and that person should be first to go out of coaching team
Yeah because not being a fan of a 15 goal a season forward is evidence of that.
Martial has always been one of my most favourite players at United in past 4 years, I love his smooth as silk finishing and the tricks he can pull out of nowhere, but I just don't think he is the kind of striker who will bring fear to opposition defenses, strikers like RVP, Aguero do. Rashford has shown he has that ability too, it just doesn't show in Martial. We can keep him as 2nd striker, but for United side with title ambitions, he is just not good enough. If Inter comes in summer with a 70 m offer, I think we should sell.
Minor positional change. Interesting take. So in theory, if Mane was injured at Liverpool and you played Firmino in his role, you'd expect Firmino to be just as good at being a wide forward as his usual position, a central link player?
Pretty much this. Martial doesn't work as a wide player. The way we set up in the second half was criminal.
Martial is neither as effective as Mane from wide position nor plays like Firmino from central position, They both are probably among the best players in their positions currently. Martial wouldn't even be in top 10, may be among top 20 if you are pushing it, in both positions.
Yes because he's lazy. He doesn't work hard. We know his quality but watching him prance about and not graft, especially when he's having a bad game, drives some fans nuts.
He is exactly the type of player, like Pogba, who are icing on the cake squad members. Undoubted quality and brilliance at times however you can't build a team or club culture around them. The main ingrediants have to come from elsewhere. I believe this is the reason the big clubs aren't hot on Pogba right now.... many are looking to rebuild and Pogba is not an essential player. Once everything else has been settled and they have spare cash they might go for him but not before.
It want just the second half. 0:40 and 1:00. Both times hes hanging around at the touchline, 1:13 instead of making a run between the CB's who are spread far apart and backtracking he drifts wide again. 1:40, the position he has taken is utterly hopeless. If he gets the ball played to his feet there like he signals hes getting tackled 99/100 times. Either you got to make some kind of movement or you need to stand right on top of the defender and hope you can shield the ball
He plays very similarly to Firmino, not as well as him, but their style is quite alike.
Add to this Martial's bad positioning. Instead of being in between CB-FB or CB-CB, he always goes too close to a CB or FB which is more of a winger mindset than CF. He is someone stuck in winger mindset, but has got no skillset for a proper winger/ His skillset (composure, finishing) matches a striker, but has no mindset for it. Need a proper coach to get him unlocked, if they manage to do it, will be a treat as he has potential in the CF position.
I dare the suggestion that Martial is not the type of striker Ole is looking for, and if Ole is still the manager in 2 years time, Martial won´t be here.
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I’ll be honest... the undertone is amazing!! I don’t think people like you realise how you come across. We’ll I hope you don’t anyway.
Do better man.
Very Thierry esq.
yes, but Henry did have the ability to work defenders which is currently lacking in Martial. He starts most of his runs like Henry from LF but end up over complicating or dribbling more than needed. He need to play simple to be more effective. Martial also need to improve his ability to spot spaces and take up positions, yesterday middle section of the pitch was empty in second half. He could have drifted inside unless he was asked by our coaches to stick wide on left. I am keen to talk with one of the coaches to understand rationale behind this as every man and his dog could see tactic in the second half was wrong.
Thanks coach. By the way coming across as patronizing isn't great either.
Anyway I am a straight talker at times. You asked a question, and the answer is yes many fans including myself get frustrated watching him sometimes not fight in games especially when he is having a stinker. There it is for you. Nothing to do with his talent which can be supreme.
@Bobcat gave you a fairly thorough explanation of what the issues are with him (stuffing up team play by murdering the basics at times, and then not fighting for it). You don't agree with the detailed explanations people give, so you ask for the 'real reason' fans dislike. I myself can ask what the undertone and inference is in that question. But look its just a footy forum and we have different opinions.
He is a very frustrating player for me because I love the basics of team play, something we demonstrated beautifully in the 1st half on Sunday. If a player doesn't retain possession, link up well, hold up well, doesn't press, doesn't track back, doesn't fight to regain possession after losing it, make runs.... this bugs me more than anything. I don't mind if an individual player has a bad game provided he doesn't overly impact the rest of the team, and still tries his guts out to make the team function.
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What is that based on? His 30 games this season right? I think he has been too up and down in his new position for you to be that assured of his qualities. It's obviously not as as simple as "play him in the right position and he'll be world class". He has had great performances both wide and central, on the left and on the right. He has also struggled in all those positions.
I'd snap their hands off and run away laughing my arse off.
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When he hasn't had to play Rashfords role, he's been very consistent this season .
He has been promising, but not exactly consistent.
The problem with him is he really lives on that one magic moment to shine. When he is bad he is really bad. I thought he had good chance to shine yesterday considering he was playing in his favourite position and had space to run at Sidibe but he doesn't show that aggressiveness which is needed.
I still expect him to get to that 20 goals mark this season provided he stays injury free but overall he has to improve. You cannot just have that one moment in 90 mins and then go missing.
I still expect him to get to that 20 goals mark this season provided he stays injury free but overall he has to improve. You cannot just have that one moment in 90 mins and then go missing.
100% agree, and jealous I can't write as succinctly as you!
Though I would add more to your comment that he goes missing. Sometimes I wish I didn't notice him but noticing him stuff up the basics of hold up and link play with poor movement and decision making is uber annoying. Possession is so important in the modern game and losing control of it cheaply has a big impact on a match at crucial moments.
He is the new Berbatov - insanely skilled, decent physically but allergic to attacking the box without the ball.
Well that is one of his other weakness. And the issue is when you are not involved in a game that much then even small mistakes become irritating. This is why I get frustrated at him of not running at defenders more often and taking them on.
Go back to the end of December in this thread and you'll see that you're wrong.
Has Firmino played over half his career in that position?
And also actually moving when we need to win the ball back.
His contribution is nil when we don't have the ball.
Well I did and I have to tell you thanks a lot for making me waste 5 or so minutes. Same shit different day as it is. Some just hate him, some blindly loves him. Some make excuses for why he is inconsistant and blame it on others like Fred playing in midfield and Rashford not playing, others making up excuses for why he always sucks like he is lazy etc.
Everyone in between seemed happy with the adjustments made after his positional switch and enjoyed how he played. In short everyone agrees it has been promising, but the questions about his consistency is still there after the positional change.
Mate this is why I find comments weird. It was bloody obvious the tactics was for him and Greenwood to split and play as some wierd inverted forwards similar to how we played against Spurs. Ole difference we didn’t have Pogba. Do you think he’s so dumb he’s just going to stick out wide when he’s supposed to be the leading marks man. Did he do that the other day when he played? No.
Berbatov is a different level to Martial. Berbatov creates a lot of chances to other players. He is also very good in the air when we need to defend in our own box. I think Odion and Martial would be a good match. Let Martial drop deep and hang outside the box while Odion plays the CF role.
He will not be making the Euros on the back of these performances
One good game in every three or four will not get him picked
One good game in every three or four will not get him picked
1:08 Look at that. That one was super annoying. Totally weird from Martial, why did he change his path, I can't believe he couldn't read that situation. He was on the right path then just wandered towards the ball instead of running in behind against Keane. That would have been a goal if he didn't have that brain fart.
That was reason I disliked Berbatov (as our striker/footballer). Fergie dumped him into bench, even after he was PL topscorer.
Agree. Berbatov with all his limitations yet was on different level than Martial. Its a travesty to compare him with Martial.
A 250k per week player should be in general consistent throughout the match week in week out. If a player wanders all over, makes no runs, takes no shot on target, doesn't create, doesn't get involved in build up, doesn't get linked with other players and then makes fans sit with fingers crossed hoping for that magic moment of redemption as game passes then that's not a player should ever play for any top clubs, let alone earn an elite level salary of 250k per week.
I can't imagine what type of game plan, training any manager will have with such player. You can't get goals out of a well rehersed plan with him because he can only deliver a "magic moment".
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