Anthony Martial | Sevilla loan watch

For those who differenciate between the right choice and the lucky choice, it might have been a lucky choice to insist on Martial staying, but it certainly doesn’t look like the right choice, given what we know. To be honest, I was suprised he even got minutes under Rangnik after his moping ever since the word Gegenpress was mentioned in a United sentence.

I’m fairly shocked that there are some that would see Martial mk January 22 as a better bet than Elanga these final months of the season, knowing the requisits for Rangnik’s style to have a shot at working short term. If Tony was dead hungry at proving all the doubters wrong about him and Rangnik-ball, yes, maaaaybe, but that was never on, was it?

The best United can reasonably hope with Martial, is that his Sevilla stint raises his congidence and hunger to the point were he can get a fresh start at United or be sold for a substantial price.
 
JPRouve said:
Top players and top strikers rarely play in teams that aren't settled. People tend to make these kind of points but they barely exist.
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Nah that's just not true, take the top 20 premier league goalscorers and most were in teams that struggled.

If you think Martial has the drive and desire of a top striker then feel free to do so. It's pointless discussing with certain posters.
 
Pexbo said:
Are we just ignoring his performances this last year? He’s really not a better option than Elang he’s a total fecking waster in a United shirt. Lazy as feck.
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Martial is a significantly better player than Elanga. Don’t be disingenuous.
 
Smores said:
Nah that's just not true, take the top 20 premier league goalscorers and most were in teams that struggled.

If you think Martial has the drive and desire of a top striker then feel free to do so. It's pointless discussing with certain posters.
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Most played for Liverpool, United, Chelsea, City, Arsenal and Tottenham. They weren't in teams that struggled but in the top 6 teams since the PL was created. The exception would be Shearer who spent a significant amount of time at a below par Newcastle and he is the definition of exceptional.
 
Kag said:
Martial is a significantly better player than Elanga. Don’t be disingenuous.
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That's all a bit theoretical at this stage though, no? As regards what they actually produce on the field, that's a real and appropriate conversation now.
 
Still ill said:
That's all a bit theoretical at this stage though, no? As regards what they actually produce on the field, that's a real and appropriate conversation now.
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Not really. Martial is just obviously the better footballer at present. Elanga is a kid who is running about a bit and making up the numbers because the genuinely talented young striker in our squad has turned out to be an arsehole.

If that Greenwood news comes out two weeks earlier then Martial is still at the club starting matches.

I also anticipate Martial will be kept on next season for this reason. Not that I’m here to defend him; he’s been out of form for far too long. He’d still be a much better option for us than Elanga. He’d be a better option than the current iteration of Cavani, for that matter.
 
Kag said:
Not really. Martial is just obviously the better footballer at present. Elanga is a kid who is running about a bit and making up the numbers because the genuinely talented young striker in our squad has turned out to be an arsehole.

If that Greenwood news comes out two weeks earlier then Martial is still at the club starting matches.

I also anticipate Martial will be kept on next season for this reason. Not that I’m here to defend him; he’s been out of form for far too long. He’d still be a much better option for us than Elanga. He’d be a better option than the current iteration of Cavani, for that matter.
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Well he should be. But he hasn't been. Not for 2 weeks. Or 5 matches. For 18 months. Not a single top quality 90 minutes. The opinion that he's a better footballer is based entirely on what we've seen in the pretty distant past. So the 'running around a bit' that you pretty condescendingly attribute as Elanga's only contribution already puts him above what we've seen from Tony in the recent past. I loved him, believed in him but I've had enough now. I'll take a bit of honesty any day of the week at the moment.
 
Smores said:
Discarded is far too heavy of a word, he was never discarded. Martial simply doesn't have the fire needed for a top player, if he did he'd have put everything into proving he's the best player on the pitch.

A fair weather player who is unable to turn his own bad form around. A move away is the right call for such a player.
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  • Is our key player under LvG, Mourinho comes in and strips his number and benches him
  • Martial repeatedly does well off the bench and never rewarded with a starting spot
  • Ole comes in, Martial hits form, has a very good 19/20
  • 20/21 Martial suffered a loss of form. Then pushed down the pecking order pretty swiftly by Cavani and then signing Ronaldo/Sancho
Look, I don't think Martial is what we want long term up top, but I think it's a mixture of his own drive and how we've treated him over the years and we've just failed to develop him properly. Every young player has a range of talent they'll develop to, and while he's a good player, I feel like this was just the bare minimum he could've developed to essentially without any useful development from the club. No settled system ever, no settled position, no settled team, no good coaching. For years.

It's not all about "fire in the belly" or individual drive. Sometimes (all the time), you need "coaching", and "talent", and "man management". Player development isn't 100% on the individual, nowhere close. The team has to give the player a good environment to grow in. And I think we've done a horrid job over the past 10 years at developing players. I mean fecking hell, look at some of the prospects we had. Januzaj was a fantastic prospect that we absolutely ruined. Rashford was a fantastic prospect and had a period where he was genuinely looking like he'll make the step to close to world class, before we overplayed him, put him through any and all injuries and probably also over-indulged him. Martial was literally seen as one of the elite European talents before we signed him and had an insane first season. Pogba was a ballon d'Or challenger and come in and proceeded to do feck all (apart from starring while he wins the World Cup for his national team while he was away from United). Shaw was an elite left back prospect.

United needs to look at themselves and why so many players have failed to step up, get consistency, or reach their potential over the last decade. I hope Martial finds some consistency and gets that fire back away from United, it'll maybe push more focus at how the struggles over the past decade isn't on the players but on the things above them.
 
VP89 said:
Martial wanted to go. He has a flight over fight mentality, which is fine.
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this is such a rubbish take and annoys me to no end. His leaving does not in any way mean he's not a fighter.
 
Was my favourite player at one point, but some of the stupidity on here is astounding. He's been a shell of a player for 18 months now and needed a change of scenery. I actually think he'll be back in the summer as I can't see us being able to sell him with the limited numbers we'll have up top, so hopefully the change gives him a boost and gets him playing again, but to suggest he's a better option for us currently than Ronaldo is completely mental.
 
chiz2kul said:
this is such a rubbish take and annoys me to no end. His leaving does not in any way mean he's not a fighter.
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Of course it doesn’t. But his performances week after week have proved it unfortunately. I was a huge Martial fan for many years. But he just does not have the right mentality and attitude to take us back to where we want to be - challenging for trophies at the highest level.

Hope he does really well during his loan and we get a fair price for him. Best case scenario
 
It was the right decision. The Seville manager seems to know how to handle him. He has said so in an interview. There is no need for United to try and get him back.
Let him get on with his life somewhere else.
 
Nicolarra90 said:
Dan James scored twice last week. Maybe we should also bring him back.
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Difference being that James has never been at our level whereas Martial has bene one of better players during different parts of his United career.

But then again, he has been absolutely torrid since last season so he has himself to blame for not being at United. Either way, while I wouldn't expect it, would be great if he improves greatly at Seville
 
People forget that he was also injured for a long time. I don't think Ole knew how to handle all the players well. He indulged in some players while pushing out others.
Martial has the ability and the vision to be a good player. He also defends well and tracks back. It's better for everyone that he is gone. His heart is not at United anymore.
 
I have no idea how he is doing - but Martial's skill set and weaknesses were always more suited to La Liga than the PL.
 
I'd actually have kept him over Cavani for the final 6 months. Neither are committed to the club but I'm not sure the latter is even committed to being a footballer anymore.
 
It's a win win for everyone. Martial get to play solid minutes (he won't start ahead of Ronaldo or Sancho here) and we also get to know if he is really good enough for us.

People are way too invested in Short term goals. If he is actually good enough, we may not even need to go for a striker ( I mean there isn't any exciting options except Halaand and Martial just give us an option to wait for the right player )
 
ash_86 said:
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Looking good there. Let's see how it goes. If he does decently hopefully we'll get a few interested parties. If he does really well, he'll be useful next season given the state of our attack. Having the technical ability of a confident Martial is better than some of our current options.
 
Canucantona20 said:
Who is better Martial or Rashford ?
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Throughout most of their time here they were pretty much even. If anything Martial was slightly ahead (to be fair he's also a little older).

Obviously that changed last season when Martial was atrocious. Rashford's general form actually wasn't that much better, but he managed to keep getting goals and assists despite the poor form.
 
bosnian_red said:
but I think it's a mixture of his own drive and how we've treated him over the years and we've just failed to develop him properly.
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Since June 2019, Ole sold Lukaku, Martial got the number 9 Jersey, was made the undisputed starting striker at the club, Ole brought the likes of Ighalo & Cavani to be his cover (both are 30+ years old players that could function as cover), not his competition, he had a good year in 19/20, and a terrible year in 20/21, so terrible that Cavani who was considered a cover became the preferred starting striker for the better part of the second half of 20/21 season that culminated into a loss in Europa League final.

Martial was definitely given the space and ample opportunity to be the best he could as the undisputed starting striker for the club, Ole was super patient with him, and yet, he just couldn't find his form since Sept 2020.
 
Mickeza said:
I don’t know why people are bickering in here. Martial needed to get fit and find his mojo again. He was never doing that here - yes in retrospect he’d get games due to Cavani being awol, rashford being poor and the situation with he who can’t be named - but it was the right decision without hindsight to let him go for 6 months.
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I agree. The best thing for him and for us is to play as much as possible and find his confidence back. He was stuck in a rot and this loan might rejuvenate him. I hope he comes back with a point to prove under good management.
 
VanDeBank said:
I'm sure our Republican donors that have fund raised for Trump took the morals of Newcastle's owners into consideration when making the decision not to loan Lingard.
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They dont give a sht but thats not the point. Fact still is that they never sold him and thats good even if it was for other reasons than being decent human beings. All Im saying is that people should stop complaining Lingard should have went to the scum fkers. It was a win no matter which way you look at it. If he goes there in the summer he is just another piece of sht like all of them are. Why am I the only one who sees this?
 
pascell said:
They both played in the same league, the league you want Martial to come back in play in, so it's only fair. Bright spark in the plug indeed.
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I suggested to compare them from now until the end of the season, then you just pulled the argument of "well, let's judge the 1st half when both were injured for a large portion, as well as shit". It's quite a childish thing to do in my opinion.
 
Greck said:
I'd actually have kept him over Cavani for the final 6 months. Neither are committed to the club but I'm not sure the latter is even committed to being a footballer anymore.
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So you would have kept a player that didn’t want to be here and sell a player that committed to Utd for the season. Just as well you’re not a manager
 
OmarUnited4ever said:
Since June 2019, Ole sold Lukaku, Martial got the number 9 Jersey, was made the undisputed starting striker at the club, Ole brought the likes of Ighalo & Cavani to be his cover (both are 30+ years old players that could function as cover), not his competition, he had a good year in 19/20, and a terrible year in 20/21, so terrible that Cavani who was considered a cover became the preferred starting striker for the better part of the second half of 20/21 season that culminated into a loss in Europa League final.

Martial was definitely given the space and ample opportunity to be the best he could as the undisputed starting striker for the club, Ole was super patient with him, and yet, he just couldn't find his form since Sept 2020.
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That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Always been a big fan of his, and you could always reason his hit and miss seasons with very legitimate explanations which have been detailed ad nauseum, but this is where he lost me. He had to follow through his positive season with Ole by keeping the performances somewhat consistent, breaking this repeating cycle of following a good season with a poor one and vice versa, but he was nowhere near that. Even in his last good season, he was already struggling to finish chances, but he was at least impactful in other ways, but then he seemed either injured, out of shape, and/or unmotivated.
 
I watched the game and it's safe to say that his performance was just ok Vs a very poor team. Hope he keeps this up so we can sell him for a decent amount. FC Martial need to enjoy watching FC Sevilla.
 
Hope he moves on in the sumner, regardless of our striker situation he has had his chances here and it’s clearly time for a clean break. He has contributed very little in the last 18 months, seems to have already been replaced by Elanga.
 
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Red00012 said:
So you would have kept a player that didn’t want to be here and sell a player that committed to Utd for the season. Just as well you’re not a manager
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Well, i tried being nice. Dont know why it's always the Martial threads with the most cretins trying to police what others think.

Ralf didn't have an ideal choice, they both wanted to leave. It's a choice between a rock and a hard place.

Committing starts with making yourself available for selection. Cavani chooses when to play. Ralf said he knows his body so it's literally a matter of playing when he feels like it. We are being taken for mugs on the Cavani issue.
 
jackal&hyde said:
I agree. The best thing for him and for us is to play as much as possible and find his confidence back. He was stuck in a rot and this loan might rejuvenate him. I hope he comes back with a point to prove under good management.
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Agree. If he comes back fit and firing under Poch (who tried to sign him at Spurs) we could have a decent player again.
 
Greck said:
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Well, i tried being nice. Dont know why it's always the Martial threads with the most cretins trying to police what others think.

Ralf didn't have an ideal choice, they both wanted to leave. It's a choice between a rock and a hard place.

Committing starts with making yourself available for selection. Cavani chooses when to play. Ralf said he knows his body so it's literally a matter of playing when he feels like it. We are being taken for mugs on the Cavani issue.
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Completely agree. The fact that Cavani has his own song is a joke.
 
Greck said:
I'd actually have kept him over Cavani for the final 6 months. Neither are committed to the club but I'm not sure the latter is even committed to being a footballer anymore.
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Interesting, I’d say the exact opposite. With Cavani the mind is willing but the body is not capable. With Martial you can pretty much swap those terms around.
 
Ali Dia said:
Pogba is better than Fred or Henderson. Rashford is better than Dan James or Jota. Without workrate these players are far worse than their technical ability suggests.
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:lol:
 
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