Anthony Martial | Sevilla loan watch

Ali Dia said:
Im no huge Rashford fan. I spent most of last season majorly frustrated by him before the penny dropped for the majority. I said this above


up to some point last season if you said Jota was better than Rashford you’d have been crucified on here. I think Rashford is a better player with a much lower work ethic on the pitch. Jota just keeps going and a chance will always fall for him. Rashford is walking around and has been for too long.

I think that’s fair enough considering people were saying Rashford was worth 100 million and all this last year or the year before
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I have defended Rashford for many years because the talent was there to be seen and he was a United product but thats the problem, we tend to give our products more time of day.
But I agree with the 100m argument, but we could see his failings but again many had it down to injuries. Jota might have had less talent but he had that energizer bunny attitude that Rashford seems to be missing.
 
JPRouve said:
I think that it is cope out. United have been structurally terrible, we all agree on that but somehow when it comes to judge pretty much all players individually we come up with far fetched theories like pressure. Almost all our players since SAF left have been mishandled and none of them have been consistent or even overachieved at the exception of maybe De Gea but even in the case of De Gea we saw him improve in his weaknesses under Hoek and then slowly regress without him which makes him an other example of a player that has been mishandled by the club since we know that he had more to offer, we know that we had a coach that was a good fit for him and yet we seemingly never made an effort to keep that partnership.

But to go back to your point, it would be something if none of the players we sign are able to handle pressure, it would be something if all our players without exception have a questionable mentality because none of them are consistent, none of them have been consistently good.
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If I appear to be using a broad brush, I’m not but not sure how you can say that pressure is a far fetched theory. It’s all theories including yours cause we are all taking a subjective view not only from the outside in but equally those that have sat next to players for years and had no understanding of how they were coping.

Im not sure they have been mishandled cause neither you, me or anyone else on here know the players wishes and feelings or these influence in the decision made. There’s a lot stating about ‘playing power’ but doesn’t seem attributed to them when things are going wrong. Neither me or you know about the DDG situation but I’m sorry, one of the best players in the world, one of the longest players here and the highest earner is going to have some say about who trains him. To suggest otherwise is absolutely ridiculous. Also who’s to say it wasn’t Hoek’s choice?

Pressure comes in lots of different forms but can all contribute in different ways in how any person preforms including you and me. Like I said, I’m not being broad brush in my comments and therefore I’m not saying the lack of consistency is down to that solely. I do believe it plays its part though and playing for a club of the statue of Utd, it would be foolish to suggest it doesn’t.
 
Conor said:
He has literally never, ever shown himself to be the hardworking, pressing forward that we need. It really doesn't matter how many goals he scores on loan, he doesn't suit our play. The more goals he scores the better, maybe we'll get a decent fee for him when we sell him.
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To me, its like Luke Shaw where, aside from one 9 month period his time here has been a few decent moments but mostly disappointing. Lazy and unintelligent, but good technically.
 
Litch said:
If I appear to be using a broad brush, I’m not but not sure how you can say that pressure is a far fetched theory. It’s all theories including yours cause we are all taking a subjective view not only from the outside in but equally those that have sat next to players for years and had no understanding of how they were coping.

Im not sure they have been mishandled cause neither you, me or anyone else on here know the players wishes and feelings or these influence in the decision made. There’s a lot stating about ‘playing power’ but doesn’t seem attributed to them when things are going wrong. Neither me or you know about the DDG situation but I’m sorry, one of the best players in the world, one of the longest players here and the highest earner is going to have some say about who trains him. To suggest otherwise is absolutely ridiculous. Also who’s to say it wasn’t Hoek’s choice?

Pressure comes in lots of different forms but can all contribute in different ways in how any person preforms including you and me. Like I said, I’m not being broad brush in my comments and therefore I’m not saying the lack of consistency is down to that solely. I do believe it plays its part though and playing for a club of the statue of Utd, it would be foolish to suggest it doesn’t.
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So you think that it's probable that all our players can't handle pressure, every single one of them? Also since 2013, at which point did you tell yourself that United had the best manager/staff or just even one of the top 5 best manager in the world?
 
JPRouve said:
So you think that it's probable that all our players can't handle pressure, every single one of them? Also since 2013, at which point did you tell yourself that United had the best manager/staff or just even one of the top 5 best manager in the world?
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I think I said on at least two occasions that I wasn’t being broad brush about it. Context is everything, I don’t think or function in a silo and the world has turned a few times since nearly ten years ago. When things change, so does my opinion.

Not sure what 2013 has to do with anything as I’ve seen and it’s well documented it’s been a graveyard of players not coping with playing for the club because of the pressure that comes with it. Its not even an argument
 
Litch said:
I think I said on at least two occasions that I wasn’t being broad brush about it. Context is everything, I don’t think or function in a silo and the world has turned a few times since nearly ten years ago. When things change, so does my opinion.

Not sure what 2013 has to do with anything as I’ve seen and it’s well documented it’s been a graveyard of players not coping with playing for the club because of the pressure that comes with it. Its not even an argument
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You did say it twice but it doesn't alter the context of your point.Pressure applies to everyone and almost none of our players have been consistent, so it's not as if you could make the point that pressure only applied to certain players or that in the context of consistency most of our players visibly handle it better. For your point to make sense we would have to accept that Manchester United's size and resulting pressure is only relevant to certain players and/or that only certain players have been inconsistent, both of these propositions are wrong.

And then even in terms of probability, we would have to agree on the idea that +60-70 different players can't handle pressure, that would be incredible bad luck. Then we can add the fact that among these players we have players that have played at the highest level for clubs that are massive including the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Juventus and Manchester United( :angel: ).

I could be wrong and missing something obvious but I don't see the link with pressure, I don't see the context that points to pressure as a key factor in the inconsistency of certain players.
 
He’s always been a good player. We know that. The question is can he ever be consistent and then move to that level above? Seeing him do what we know he can do on loan hardly answers the questions and in order to do so you have to consider his career to date at United.
 
TheReligion said:
He’s always been a good player. We know that. The question is can he ever be consistent and then move to that level above? Seeing him do what we know he can do on loan hardly answers the questions and in order to do so you have to consider his career to date at United.
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I find that interesting. If we assume that the answers are no, Martial is a good but inconsistent player that isn't going to become very good. That's the definition of a squad player for a very good team, it's the likes of Nani, Asensio, Sané, Berbatov and many others.

If you don't have room for a squad player or if you want to bring an other squad player with upsides then selling him makes total sense. The surprising thing for me is when people claim that because Martial isn't a player that will lead you to a league title, he is useless to us. United fans have lost their collective minds and it's not limited to Martial, you see the same logic applied with Maguire, Fred, Shaw or McTominay as if a succesful team was supposed to only be made of 11 consistent and very good players.

I know that it's a bit of a tangent.
 
JPRouve said:
I find that interesting. If we assume that the answers are no, Martial is a good but inconsistent player that isn't going to become very good. That's the definition of a squad player for a very good team, it's the likes of Nani, Asensio, Sané, Berbatov and many others.

If you don't have room for a squad player or if you want to bring an other squad player with upsides then selling him makes total sense. The surprising thing for me is when people claim that because Martial isn't a player that will lead you to a league title, he is useless to us. United fans have lost their collective minds and it's not limited to Martial, you see the same logic applied with Maguire, Fred, Shaw or McTominay as if a succesful team was supposed to only be made of 11 consistent and very good players.

I know that it's a bit of a tangent.
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I agree that he’s a good squad player to keep however the issue is he doesn’t want that, nor does he seem happy with it, which makes things tricky.

If he could be kept motivated then I’d absolutely keep him as one of the forwards. Would you?
 
TheReligion said:
I agree that he’s a good squad player to keep however the issue is he doesn’t want that, nor does he seem happy with it, which makes things tricky.

If he could be kept motivated then I’d absolutely keep him as one of the forwards. Would you?
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As I said it was tangential, today Martial seemingly chose to continue his career elsewhere but the observation that you made was already shared a year or two ago. And I mentioned it in the past but I would have moved on anyway, basically I think that SAF had the correct idea when it came to rejuvenate the team by bringing new squad players every 3 or 4 years and Martial would have been in that rotation, in a way that's how you keep squad players motivated by having new ones.
 
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JPRouve said:
As I said it was tangential, today Martial seemingly shows to continue his career elsewhere but the observation that you made was already shared a year or two ago. And I mentioned it in the past but I would have moved on anyway, basically I think that SAF had the correct idea when it came to rejuvenate the team by bringing new squad players every 3 or 4 years and Martial would have been in that rotation, in a way that's how you keep squad players motivated by having new ones.
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If we has consistency with the management for a few years then we might have seen that with him I agree. The issue is we haven’t so each new coach comes in and gives these squad type players another go and we rinse repeat… need to break that cycle. I’m looking forward to summer and what should be a proper reset.
 
bosnian_red said:
  • 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.
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Good post. There was a LOT of raw material when he came in. That early game vs Southampton has been reduced to a gif of him destroying VVD, but he was brilliant otherwise too (in his 1st start, and playing as a 9). Running at the defence, tight control, holding the ball up, at that point he even made runs into channels, ice-cold finishing.

Under 2 different setups he never worked on off-the-ball stuff, which seemed to stagnate or get worse. I don't care about whether or not he smiled or if his celebrations were happy enough, but there was clearly more he could be doing to improve. The loss of form last season, coming straight after his best season, is inexplicable. I rate him (as a talent) really high, which is why I rate his last season as a total 2/10 disaster. 1 point for his single good game (City away), the other for not scoring 0 goals.

But as you say, it's not all on him. Abrasive and disruptive coaching under Jose really held him back, twice (sidelined in Jose's first season, and then Sanchez replacing him when he was in very good form during the second season). Under Ole I think (at least after Lukaku was sold) he was treated well enough. But it's clear he doesn't like competition - the opposite of DDG and Shaw. And also that it's not just him that lost form at the start of 20/21 - the front 3 which finished 19/20 so well never looked as cohesive again. Something clearly went wrong in training.
 
berbatrick said:
Good post. There was a LOT of raw material when he came in. That early game vs Southampton has been reduced to a gif of him destroying VVD, but he was brilliant otherwise too (in his 1st start, and playing as a 9). Running at the defence, tight control, holding the ball up, at that point he even made runs into channels, ice-cold finishing.

Under 2 different setups he never worked on off-the-ball stuff, which seemed to stagnate or get worse. I don't care about whether or not he smiled or if his celebrations were happy enough, but there was clearly more he could be doing to improve. The loss of form last season, coming straight after his best season, is inexplicable. I rate him (as a talent) really high, which is why I rate his last season as a total 2/10 disaster. 1 point for his single good game (City away), the other for not scoring 0 goals.

But as you say, it's not all on him. Abrasive and disruptive coaching under Jose really held him back, twice (sidelined in Jose's first season, and then Sanchez replacing him when he was in very good form during the second season). Under Ole I think (at least after Lukaku was sold) he was treated well enough. But it's clear he doesn't like competition - the opposite of DDG and Shaw. And also that it's not just him that lost form at the start of 20/21 - the front 3 which finished 19/20 so well never looked as cohesive again. Something clearly went wrong in training.
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I don't get that because Martial thrived during his competition with Rashford. If anything one should conclude that the only time the wheels came off was when he didn't had competition which is after 19/20.
 
JPRouve said:
I don't get that because Martial thrived during his competition with Rashford. If anything one should conclude that the only time the wheels came off was when he didn't had competition which is after 19/20.
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It was clearly Rashford LW - Martial ST in 19/20 I think? Rashford played as striker only when Martial was injured.
The competition after that was Cavani - an actual 9, not a wide attacker.
 
berbatrick said:
It was clearly Rashford LW - Martial ST in 19/20 I think? Rashford played as striker only when Martial was injured.
The competition after that was Cavani - an actual 9, not a wide attacker.
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Point faced his competition and always tried to win his competition. Against Rashford and then Sanchez.
 
berbatrick said:
It was clearly Rashford LW - Martial ST in 19/20 I think? Rashford played as striker only when Martial was injured.
The competition after that was Cavani - an actual 9, not a wide attacker.
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Yes and that season without competition was followed by a poor season. Before that under Mourinho Martial was competing with Rashford and beating him, then Rashford would get on the bench and earn starts through cameos. To say that Martial doesn't like competition would be ignoring how he got games between 2016-2019.
 
flappyjay said:
Point faced his competition and always tried to win his competition. Against Rashford and then Sanchez.
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His form disappeared when Sanchez joined - he was playing well and scoring from LW that January (he had finally got into the starting XI), never scored again for the rest of the season after that (Sanchez joined end of the month).
 
JPRouve said:
Yes and that season without competition was followed by a poor season. Before that under Mourinho Martial was competing with Rashford and beating him, then Rashford would get on the bench and earn starts through cameos. To say that Martial doesn't like competition would be ignoring how he got games between 2016-2019.
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Fair enough, he was competing with Rashford under Jose for LW and did win a place - and then lost it when Sanchez came. Not his fault, that whole thing was a disaster, but his form didn't necessarily have to fall the way it did.
 
berbatrick said:
His form disappeared when Sanchez joined - he was playing well and scoring from LW that January (he had finally got into the starting XI), never scored again for the rest of the season after that (Sanchez joined end of the month).
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That's not really what happened, Martial was immediately moved to the right wing where he is a less player. He then got injured didn't play for a month and struggled to regain form.
 
JPRouve said:
You did say it twice but it doesn't alter the context of your point.Pressure applies to everyone and almost none of our players have been consistent, so it's not as if you could make the point that pressure only applied to certain players or that in the context of consistency most of our players visibly handle it better. For your point to make sense we would have to accept that Manchester United's size and resulting pressure is only relevant to certain players and/or that only certain players have been inconsistent, both of these propositions are wrong.

And then even in terms of probability, we would have to agree on the idea that +60-70 different players can't handle pressure, that would be incredible bad luck. Then we can add the fact that among these players we have players that have played at the highest level for clubs that are massive including the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Juventus and Manchester United( :angel: ).

I could be wrong and missing something obvious but I don't see the link with pressure, I don't see the context that points to pressure as a key factor in the inconsistency of certain players.
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We all are surmising so anything that follows it is based on that irrespective of what logic we offer. It is all opinion based. It’s hard to argue that playing for Utd comes with a pressure that is very different to other clubs, even some in their respective leagues. What I’m offering is the opinion that the pressure has impacted on certain plays and this has impacted on aspects of their game e.g inconsistency. Even this is relative and thats why I say it is not a broad brush statement.
 
Conor said:
He has literally never, ever shown himself to be the hardworking, pressing forward that we need. It really doesn't matter how many goals he scores on loan, he doesn't suit our play. The more goals he scores the better, maybe we'll get a decent fee for him when we sell him.
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We've literally never, ever played as a pressing team.
 
We are not a pressing team
One of the problems we have at Utd is managing squad players and making them feel as part of a team
Liverpool have about 6 forward players now and same with City and they get enough games and are made to feel part of the team
As long as the focus is on the 1st 11 players,we will always struggle as you need your squad for a long season
Players like Martial and Rashford are good enough for Man Utd squad if they are managed properly
 
Raven said:
We've literally never, ever played as a pressing team.
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When someone isn't even arsed working hard in a reactive setup, he's probably not going to suddenly become Tevez in his mid 20s.
 
rooney2009 said:
We are not a pressing team
One of the problems we have at Utd is managing squad players and making them feel as part of a team
Liverpool have about 6 forward players now and same with City and they get enough games and are made to feel part of the team
As long as the focus is on the 1st 11 players,we will always struggle as you need your squad for a long season
Players like Martial and Rashford are good enough for Man Utd squad if they are managed properly
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A massive part of the squad happiness issue is due to our poor form. If all 3 forwards are performing at a really high level, then as a squad player you would at least understand why you are not picked. If the team is playing poorly, and they don’t get picked, they’d rightly wonder why they might not get a chance more often.
 
LoneStar said:
A massive part of the squad happiness issue is due to our poor form. If all 3 forwards are performing at a really high level, then as a squad player you would at least understand why you are not picked. If the team is playing poorly, and they don’t get picked, they’d rightly wonder why they might not get a chance more often.
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100% agree with you
 
LoneStar said:
A massive part of the squad happiness issue is due to our poor form. If all 3 forwards are performing at a really high level, then as a squad player you would at least understand why you are not picked. If the team is playing poorly, and they don’t get picked, they’d rightly wonder why they might not get a chance more often.
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Martial was worse. Wasn’t it 1 goal in 25 or something ridiculous?
 
Played against Espanyol today. Can anyone drop the Anto highlights? I don't know how Twitter works :(
 
How can any Manchester United fan who grew up watching the likes of Robson, Keane, Giggs, Cole, Neville, Rio, acidic, Evra, Beckham, Rooney, Ronaldo, etc., ever think that Martial’s mentality and attitude is suitable for the club? He’s a talented player hindered by his own lack of consistent drive.
 
RedPnutz said:
How can any Manchester United fan who grew up watching the likes of Robson, Keane, Giggs, Cole, Neville, Rio, acidic, Evra, Beckham, Rooney, Ronaldo, etc., ever think that Martial’s mentality and attitude is suitable for the club? He’s a talented player hindered by his own lack of consistent drive.
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Will never forget the old Rio-Acidic partnership. Rio with his pace - and Acidic always dissolving any threat.
 
He's the modern day Nicolas Anelka, all the ability but not willing to put the work in. Only difference is Anelka went from club to club as a kid and Martial has stuck it out with us

Only later in his career will he realise that he threw away a great opportunity to be a top top player.
 
RedPnutz said:
How can any Manchester United fan who grew up watching the likes of Robson, Keane, Giggs, Cole, Neville, Rio, acidic, Evra, Beckham, Rooney, Ronaldo, etc., ever think that Martial’s mentality and attitude is suitable for the club? He’s a talented player hindered by his own lack of consistent drive.
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Hit it on the head. Too rich at too young an age. Lost the desire eg Pog, Shaw, Bissa and Rash (who look miserable) The ones who do look like they give everything are Elanga, Hannibal, Scott, Fred, Matic, Varane but either too young, not talented enough or too old.
 
Drainy said:
To me, its like Luke Shaw where, aside from one 9 month period his time here has been a few decent moments but mostly disappointing. Lazy and unintelligent, but good technically.
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I think the difference is that Shaw has the baseline qualities of defending well 1 on 1 and passing the ball well from LB and Martial doesn't have the baseline qualities of a center forward in that he can't be counted on for 5-7 tap ins/headers/rebounds a year in a league season to go with 10-15 goals moreso based on his qualities.

A meh shaw is still a 7/10 but a meh Martial is a 6/10
 
I've long felt he'll do well in Serie A. Maybe Fiorentina if Piatek doesn't sign up permanently, he could compete or play with Cabral.
 
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