[It's B Rubble]

He looked average at best today and that was my expectation for the entire squad. James couldn’t create the space because Spurs sat deep, nullifying his only weapon, speed. It looked as if Rashford had a free role, roaming from wing to wing while Martial was stuck stationary to that 9. Mata on the right, with his quick passing and abilities to see the field while dropping back so Martial doesn’t go searching for the ball while being surrounded by Spurs players, would’ve suited this game better.

His chance against Dier was sub par. As a striker, knowing that Dier is absolutely crap in 1v1 situations ( as exposed by Pogba), should be mandatory. He made up for that with a brilliant effort against Lloris with his left foot that would’ve seen this whole forum singing his name.

A very rusty performance but not so inexcusable considering the performances of Bruno, Rashford, and especially Pogba.

5/10 for me

 

[Bebestation]

Really wished he’d have gotten a handle on the Bruno pass quicker; definitely grew into the game in the 2nd half. With a contribution from the RW position he can be an effective attacker.

James completely destroys him because all James ends up doing is whipping a cross in, unable to cut in and spending time on the touchline.

When Greenwood comes on Martial is much better because all our forwards become much narrower and closer together- that feeling of Martial playing too deep and James playing too wide goes away because Greenwood is cutting in on his left foot and making runs, Rashford is cutting in and making runs, Martial is dropping deep playing one twos before making a run back in to the box etc.

James's play as a RW effects wan Bissaka too, he literally struggles to overlap because James cant play as a forward.

You cant judge Martial until you play him with forwards like Mane & Salah - as cringey as that sounds, Rashford the LW plays exactly likes Mane and out of Greenwood and James at RW - James doesn't resemble anything like salah and only Greenwood does because there is only space left between the striker and RW when james plays.

We need left footed players on the right hand side and if Sancho is coming he has to be as good as Pedro was for Barcelona best team ever period of being able to cut in and play as a forward - because James is nowhere near close.

I wont judge Martial as good or not good enough until he gets the right balanced RW.

 

[Davie Moyes]

Was it just me or was Bruno turn and pass so good even Tony was a bit surprised given he was slow to react?

The poster above is spot on in that he's not aggressive and explosive enough in making his off the ball runs. That's going to stop him being up there with the best.

 

[criticalanalysis]

Yeah, his first touch was a bit heavy so it increased the time before he got the shot away.

I'll need to look at it again but I don't think it was a particularly heavy touch. I think his shooting technique and placement was poor as it seems he scuffed it and tried to go across goal. He should have hit it in the centre or 'flat' with his laces towards the near and top post i.e just leather it.

 

[The Purley King]

One (or arguably two) words.
Dogshit

Ole please play igalho from now on.

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

Define forgetting. You mean all the countless threads made about him, crapping about his game every post made.

I'm sure you yourself have a few threads questioning Martial every single hour, I'm actually surprised you of all people would talk about forgetting(forgiving) a Martial's performance

If he scored the goal it would be added to the goal tally that people like to bring up while forgetting some of the poor performances that came with it.

 

[MadDogg]

I'll need to look at it again but I don't think it was a particularly heavy touch. I think his shooting technique and placement was poor as it seems he scuffed it and tried to go across goal. He should have hit it in the centre or 'flat' with his laces towards the near and top post i.e just leather it.

It wasn't a particularly heavy touch, but it was heavy enough to stop him getting the shot away instantly. At least that was my impression - like you I'd have to watch it again to be sure.

 

[Mr Smith]

One (or arguably two) words.
Dogshit

Ole please play igalho from now on.

Incredibly harsh. Got barely any service in the first half. Had two good chances in the second; the first he admittedly could have done better with but it was still a good block; the second was a genuinely excellent take, he hardly could have done better with it.

What are you expecting from these players after 3 months out. More to the point, what has Ighalo shown you he can do that Martial can't?

 

[The Purley King]

Incredibly harsh. Got barely any service in the first half. Had two good chances in the second; the first he admittedly could have done better with but it was still a good block; the second was a genuinely excellent take, he hardly could have done better with it.

What are you expecting from these players after 3 months out. More to the point, what has Ighalo shown you he can do that Martial can't?

This was the martial of old.
Zero movement minimal effort , lost the ball when attempting to hold it up.
Unlucky not to score with the loris save but a Man Utd centre forward should be a fecking terror. Martial is more of an irritant.

Occasionally great but mostly underwhelming

 

[Shark]

The criticism he's receiving is harsh, as per usual. Should have scored if not for a outstanding save from Lloris, had some good touches when we did link up. of course players like Rashford, Shaw and AWB won't get nearly as much stick for genuinely poor performances. Martial wasn't poor, he was starved of service for the most part.

 

[Santoryo]

If he scored the goal it would be added to the goal tally that people like to bring up while forgetting some of the poor performances that came with it.

Seriously? The guy is on 16 goals this season yet he get criticisms as if he's putting Lingard numbers. People criticize him even when he scores. His last game was against City and he scored yet all the tread during the 3 months break about Martial were about getting rid of him. This idea that he gets let off easy when he score is absurd. Martial and Pogba are probably the most unfairly criticized players on these boards. Never far away from any sort of criticism.

 

[Santoryo]

He looked average at best today and that was my expectation for the entire squad. James couldn’t create the space because Spurs sat deep, nullifying his only weapon, speed. It looked as if Rashford had a free role, roaming from wing to wing while Martial was stuck stationary to that 9. Mata on the right, with his quick passing and abilities to see the field while dropping back so Martial doesn’t go searching for the ball while being surrounded by Spurs players, would’ve suited this game better.

His chance against Dier was sub par. As a striker, knowing that Dier is absolutely crap in 1v1 situations ( as exposed by Pogba), should be mandatory. He made up for that with a brilliant effort against Lloris with his left foot that would’ve seen this whole forum singing his name.

A very rusty performance but not so inexcusable considering the performances of Bruno, Rashford, and especially Pogba.

5/10 for me

Seriously? Rashford had a worse game than him. In fact all the attackers had a below par game.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Totally ineffective today, can't remeber him touching the ball once.

 

[Davie Moyes]

Did you see Ole's reaction to both his attempts on goal? For the first disappointment that he was not sharp enough, the kind of chance Ole would be so alert to. For second he clapped as was a very good effort and fantastic save.

 

[friendlytramp]

Not good enough but Ighalo doesn’t have the pace to press may have to go to Rashford and greenwood split strikers and Bruno 10

 

[Mr Smith]

This was the martial of old.
Zero movement minimal effort , lost the ball when attempting to hold it up.
Unlucky not to score with the loris save but a Man Utd centre forward should be a fecking terror. Martial is more of an irritant.

Occasionally great but mostly underwhelming

I get where you're coming from, but you're judging him based on a level we're not at as a whole, and haven't been for 8 years. You can say we need to improve on him (debatable, and in my opinion we have bigger priorities), but there's no point expecting Martial to be a Van Nistelrooy or a Rooney. He's never been that type of player.

Personally I think we really failed to use him well, particularly in the first half. The whole reason we sold Lukaku is because he wasn't reliable when you play balls into his feet, but Martial can actually hold the ball up and bring others into play. But we barely ever tried to do that.

 

[The Purley King]

I get where you're coming from, but you're judging him based on a level we're not at as a whole, and haven't been for 8 years. You can say we need to improve on him (debatable, and in my opinion we have bigger priorities), but there's no point expecting Martial to be a Van Nistelrooy or a Rooney. He's never been that type of player.

Personally I think we really failed to use him well, particularly in the first half. The whole reason we sold Lukaku is because he wasn't reliable when you play balls into his feet, but Martial can actually hold the ball up and bring others into play. But we barely ever tried to do that.

I’m sorry that is bollocks.
Martial had plenty of opportunity To do his job properly, even in the first half.
Hold it up, lay it off, get a return, be a nuisance. Make a run, drag someone out of position, get people into play.
He did none of this. Was weak and bullied off the ball almost every time.
Work rate was derisory.
Hopefully someone offers 50m and we can get rid.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

James completely destroys him because all James ends up doing is whipping a cross in, unable to cut in and spending time on the touchline.

When Greenwood comes on Martial is much better because all our forwards become much narrower and closer together- that feeling of Martial playing too deep and James playing too wide goes away because Greenwood is cutting in on his left foot and making runs, Rashford is cutting in and making runs, Martial is dropping deep playing one twos before making a run back in to the box etc.

James's play as a RW effects wan Bissaka too, he literally struggles to overlap because James cant play as a forward.

You cant judge Martial until you play him with forwards like Mane & Salah - as cringey as that sounds, Rashford the LW plays exactly likes Mane and out of Greenwood and James at RW - James doesn't resemble anything like salah and only Greenwood does because there is only space left between the striker and RW when james plays.

We need left footed players on the right hand side and if Sancho is coming he has to be as good as Pedro was for Barcelona best team ever period of being able to cut in and play as a forward - because James is nowhere near close.

I wont judge Martial as good or not good enough until he gets the right balanced RW.

I almost wrote the highlighted in the AWB performance thread earlier, i genuinely feel a top class RW threat would transform the team immeasurably.

 

[OldTrevil]

He needed early service and now with Pogba and Bruno in the middle he should ge plenty of chances to get his numbers early as he builds back to full fitness, he was muscled out of a couple of duels and generally targeted for take down from minute one. Good thing the games come thick and fast now.

 

[Dante]

He doesn't play enough football when he's on the pitch.

 

[bosnian_red]

Better 2nd half, useless first. Should've scored twice, 1 great save and 1 waited too long to shoot.

 

[MikeKing]

He doesn't play enough football when he's on the pitch.

I agree. An invisible man, but even a player like Kane is just the same at times.

 

[tjb]

Its his lack of off the ball movement that is the killer for me. When you look at Vardy, Aguero, Aubameyang etc they're so aggressive with their runs, they constantly make runs to either get on the end of passes or, make room for their team mates to exploit.

Was the service to him tonight brilliant? No but you could see when we had the ball in the right areas, we'd look to make the pass but it just wasn't on.

If he just got the aggression in his game, he'd exploid into a top class striker.

Bruno had to push him at times to press. People have to be logical here and decide what we really want. Having Martial is cheaper and praying he improves his weaknesses makes us feel better, but in order to get to that next level, we have to ask what we expect a quality striker chasing the league every year to do. Should he need to be harried to press? Or managed to make off the ball runs? Some people argue that he is an orchestrator like Firmino, but I've never seen this in his game. Rashford frequently makes better passes than him. His hold up play is suspect in 50 percent of matches, and even his finishing can only be verified when he is cutting in from the left with his right foot. He has been here since 2015, which is 5 years ( 4.5) seasons. We know him now and as fans we have seen and assessed everything he has and possibly can provide us with. Why waste time with him?

 

[tjb]

The criticism he's receiving is harsh, as per usual. Should have scored if not for a outstanding save from Lloris, had some good touches when we did link up. of course players like Rashford, Shaw and AWB won't get nearly as much stick for genuinely poor performances. Martial wasn't poor, he was starved of service for the most part.

Here's my thing. I recongize he's a decent player, but I feel our attackers get away with not helping us build up. If our midfield and defence are finding it difficult to get the ball up the pitch, the attackers should feel a responsibility to a little deeper to provide additional options to them, rather than wait for 20 minutes of zombie passing around the back before anything happens.

 

[He'sRaldo]

James completely destroys him because all James ends up doing is whipping a cross in, unable to cut in and spending time on the touchline.

When Greenwood comes on Martial is much better because all our forwards become much narrower and closer together- that feeling of Martial playing too deep and James playing too wide goes away because Greenwood is cutting in on his left foot and making runs, Rashford is cutting in and making runs, Martial is dropping deep playing one twos before making a run back in to the box etc.

James's play as a RW effects wan Bissaka too, he literally struggles to overlap because James cant play as a forward.

You cant judge Martial until you play him with forwards like Mane & Salah - as cringey as that sounds, Rashford the LW plays exactly likes Mane and out of Greenwood and James at RW - James doesn't resemble anything like salah and only Greenwood does because there is only space left between the striker and RW when james plays.

We need left footed players on the right hand side and if Sancho is coming he has to be as good as Pedro was for Barcelona best team ever period of being able to cut in and play as a forward - because James is nowhere near close.

I wont judge Martial as good or not good enough until he gets the right balanced RW.

This is it.

But tactics aside, once we brought on Pogba I think he did well enough. Look at Rashford's thread and everyone's saying he was rusty, meanwhile Martial put in a comparable performance and obviously we'll never win anything with him. And all that's without even mentioning the 200M striker on the pitch who had the most invisible performance of the 3.

I think we should give him a chance to work up some fitness first, especially as a striker. That said, if he knew he was going to be subbed he should have worked harder and exhausted himself before then. Hopefully that will improve in the coming games.

 

[Red00012]

It won’t be somewhere we will be spending this summer as we’ve Ighalo and Mason coming through but there is a problem there.
For achieving top 4 yes martial is fine . He’ll grab a few goals but the problem is if we want to get near Liverpool next season we need to improve this position be it someone else or Martial dramatically improves his finishing , movement , 50/50 balls that he receives and close control.

 

[ghaliboy]

If we hadn't seen the last 9 months of basically these awful performances you'd call it an 'off day' or 'rusty'. But it was just the same performance, doesn't know how to move and gets in the way of team mates. The service might be shit but he doesn't move, he doesn't move and the service is shit and the service is shit and he doesn't move and he doesn't move and the service is shit and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on.

Weird player and a worrying lack of working on the movement off ball when we're in possession for basically putting the season on hold for 3 months and coming back and being the completely same player. Bit of a mind bender.

 

[SambaBoy]

Has to score from that chance where Fernandes played him in. I didn't think he expected it, but any top striker buries it. Took him an age to get it out of his feet.

Some of his hold up play was good, and he was always going to struggle to get loads of the ball with the sort of game it was.

 

[Le Red]

I really think the problem lies in his movement off the ball, or rather lack of it. He's not Messi to walk about and conserve energy.
With the ball he's always dangerous, he would have scored today if not for a save of the season candidate.

 

[Freak]

I don’t think he’s good enough to be our main striker. He’s not consistent enough. He has far too many games like today where he goes missing or doesn’t make runs etc

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Really like Martial but that was a poor display. Needs to get more involved.

 

[Maluco]

Football is a squad game. It’s pretty obvious that United need a top drawer CF, and Martial would easily get enough game time covering Rashford and that CF.

Should he be the main main up top? No, not for a top side, but it’s great he can do a job there as well as from the left.

He is not written off just because he shouldn’t be first choice, but he isn’t natural enough in that position to be the main man

 

[kafta]

He didn't look sharp, like half the team which is to be expected. Almost scored with his left, if not for a really good save from Loris. I expect he'll get back to his best quickly, but as usual the problem was that when he is not close to his best, he looks invisible.

Will reserve judgement till the end of the season, as he was doing well before the interruption,

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

Seriously? The guy is on 16 goals this season yet he get criticisms as if he's putting Lingard numbers. People criticize him even when he scores. His last game was against City and he scored yet all the tread during the 3 months break about Martial were about getting rid of him. This idea that he gets let off easy when he score is absurd. Martial and Pogba are probably the most unfairly criticized players on these boards. Never far away from any sort of criticism.

Yes he gets criticised alot. My comment was for the people that defend him obviously. I've said several times he deserves another season and threads made about him are because of the uncertainty that he can take us to glory - Champions league Premier league. I'll say it again. He deserves another season but he has to go another level now and most importantly be consistent. If he doesn't then we need another striker

 

[christy87]

Really like Martial but that was a poor display. Needs to get more involved.

I think we’ve been saying that for years and nothing changes with him, rashford as evolved more as a player in the last year than martial has since he came here

 

[SpyLuke10]

I rate him. He thrives off chances. We didn't create many until Pogba came on, but as soon as Pogba came on Martial had 2 really good chances.

No need to sign a new striker. Not until January at least. Come January we re-evaluate. Make a decision then depending on how Martial and Greenwood have gone and developed. Greenwood might be ready by then. Who knows?

 

[Bebestation]

The fact is Fred and Mctomminay is not as good as Pogba and that shows.

Fred and Mctomminay are not as good as good as De Bruyne and Silva. But Pogba and Bruno Fernandes is.

The fact is that Rashford, Martial and James isnt the same cohesive line up that is able to create chances by themselves by taking on defenders together as Mane, Firmino and Salah.

That's primarily because of James who couldn't take on a man one to one on the RW like Salah does and come out on top before curling in a shot with his left foot. The space between him and the striker is absolutely huge whilst Liverpool's front 3 hardly need a midfield because they just play so close together that their wing backs provide an attacking support.

Rashford, Martial, Greenwood is on the same level as Liverpool's line up (was plenty of articles about this year) because its cohesive, its able to cut in and use Rashford's strongers right foot or Greenwood's stronger left foot whilst Martialis able to then play how he is supposed to play, a supportive striker to help clinical strikers playing off him whilst taking chances himself.


We have the ability of literally creating a Liverpool attack with a Man City Midfield but yesterday Ole was anxious and scared treating Greenwood like a baby who hasnt broken through to the first team again.

The reason we do not score goals is because we dont start Greenwood who is a pure wide goal scorer and we play Daniel James instead who at his best will try to cross than score a goal due to his inability to cut in ( which like if he played for liverpool, effects our wingback ability to overlap him because he hogs the touch line).

Martial does absolutely fine when Rashford and Greenwood are either side of him and he is there to cause insanity to the defenders with all 3 (does daniel James sound good in doing that really?).

However if Ole decides that he wants to stick with daniel James on the right to whip crosses in to a striker who plays deep most of the game then Martial can just leave the club, he won't suddenly turn in to the poacher half the forum crave after one season. Ole could end up doing the same thing with Sancho (cross like james) rather than make Sancho play like a right footed RW forward like Pedro of Barcelona or Mbappe of Monaco, PSG and France and Martial will continue to struggle.

I hope that's not the case. We have the ability of being better than City and Liverpool by a combination of tactics of both teams that only we can really pull off - Martial is important to that just as much as Greenwood is.

 

[Adisa]

He was generally poor but he was far better in the second half.
He needs to do better but I don't see how any striker would have thrived in that first half.
People have taken it to the extreme. "He's been poor for 9 months", what the hell are you guys talking about?
He should have buried the Bruno pass but I'll put that down to being rusty. He's generally good in those situations.
Imo, the second half was encouraging and with better luck he could have had a brace.

 

[Adisa]

Mourinho really did a number on our midfield in the first half. I can't remember many passes into the channels that wasn't blocked or snuffed out. Both he and Rashford suffered cause of that.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

We have the ability of literally creating a Liverpool attack with a Man City Midfield

Woah easy there