Just out of curiosity, who is better than him in our team?
Other than your laughable transfer ideas, I'm very interested in hearing your list and your reasons for it.
Haven't watched enough non-Prem this year to say (and that's where the value is by and large) so don't necessarily have a strong opinion on if the obvious targets (young, productive in good leagues and still at "selling clubs" or likely to move) like Osimhen, Werner (he's got some of the same faults as Martial but there's a bit of Vardy in him too), Milik or Dembele would be better. Odds are one or two will be one one or two won't.
I just meant that a front 6 of:
Rashford-Martial-James
---Pogba------McTominay
-------------Fred----------------
is probably a bit worse than a more balanced front 6 of say:
Rashford---Haller------James
-----Pogba-----Tielemans------
----------McTominay----------------
and we probably could have signed Tielemans and Haller for 100M combined this summer and sold Martial and another squad player like Lingard or Jones for a similar amount. We'd be less spectacular at our best, but we wouldn't have the insane dips we've had either.
As for our team, do you really think Martial is currently outperforming De Gea, Pogba, Rashford, Wan-Bissaka or James? I'd have him around 6th or 7th in terms of actual week to week performance (value above average Prem starter at their position, which seems like the best way to judge things) along with Maguire and McTominay. Pogba and De Gea go without saying and most teams would kill for a LW with the goal threat of Rashford or the best defensive RB in the league. James, McTominay, Maguire and Martial all been above average Prem starters but James nicks it for me (and I think with Greenwood or another 9 up front who can get on the end of a cross he'd have a couple more assists, as Martial is genuinely the worst striker in the league in this regard), though I'd bet on Maguire putting some better form together and getting into the Rashford/WanBissaka group even with his issues.
Martial has 37 goals in 90 starts and 41 sub appearances for us. That's basically 12 goals or so in a full season for a very healthy Prem starter if my math is correct. Is that really any better than an average Prem striker like Josh King or Danny Ings would get for us? I'd put the number right around there personally, and they'd certainly do more off the ball and defensively, right?
Martial can become a great player and on certain teams I think he'd be a very good one now, but for us I'd just say pretty good, a team of his level players finishes 6th-8th, which is where we'll probably finish with him as a middle of the packer starter (say 7th of 11 since you really have 14-15 first choice players with injuries and suspensions and rotation).