Has Martial done enough to be backed as our long-term #9?

Is this even a debate anymore.

Hes an embarrassment! I called it to my mates pre-game and then after he had a rest after 1 minute.

Absolute waste of space.

Our front 3 should be Rashford , Cavani and Greenwood.

Martial can play to allow the others to rest.
All he’s good for
 
SinNombre said:
We created 0.99 xG against Sheffield United at home.

The problem is and remains our chance creation, which is well below elite teams.

City constantly creates 3+ xG against these kind of teams.

Our fans have a strange estimation of our finishing vs chance creation.
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Partly true but when he’s playing from the left shouldn’t he be one of the players creating these chances? His body language and lack of fecks given (probably because he was moved to the left side) was a complete disgrace for a team pushing for a title, he needs dropping for attitude alone then his performance was one of the worst I’ve ever seen from Martial, absolutely dreadful.
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
Probably this:
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This could be a fair shout. It is a slightly strange strategy but does give players a chance, and we all know that a player never comes into form on the bench.

I have been a big fan of Martial but I think the time has come for him to move on. I love his skill with the ball at his feet but I just can't see him replicating his form at the end of last season. He looks like he has completely lost it. I had thought in his purple patch that it was finally clicking for him and we would be seeing the realisation of his obvious talents on the regular.

He is a good player, but I think a previous poster nailed it. Look at United's history and he falls well short of the kind of player we have previously seen at the club.
 
We created barely anything for Anthony tonight to be fair, but that doesn't excuse his as usual sup-par work rate. I said it in the match day thread this would be the game where the mood fully changes on him.

He may even squeeze in another purple patch and fool people again, but I'd like to think the majority won't be fooled again. He's not elite, he's not good enough for where we want to be.
 
Bobade said:
This could be a fair shout. It is a slightly strange strategy but does give players a chance, and we all know that a player never comes into form on the bench.

I have been a big fan of Martial but I think the time has come for him to move on. I love his skill with the ball at his feet but I just can't see him replicating his form at the end of last season. He looks like he has completely lost it. I had thought in his purple patch that it was finally clicking for him and we would be seeing the realisation of his obvious talents on the regular.

He is a good player, but I think a previous poster nailed it. Look at United's history and he falls well short of the kind of player we have previously seen at the club.
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I won’t say strange strategy. That just shows that the manager wants to believe in you, he probably understands how it feels as player so he gave Pereira & Lingard lot of chances until both have no excuses anymore and now is doing it to Martial. I remember Martial agent was making excuses. With this strategy, none of the player, the agent or even the Martial FC will have excuses to say that he’s been unfairly treated.
 
Judas said:
We created barely anything for Anthony tonight to be fair, but that doesn't excuse his as usual sup-par work rate. I said it in the match day thread this would be the game where the mood fully changes on him.

He may even squeeze in another purple patch and fool people again, but I'd like to think the majority won't be fooled again. He's not elite, he's not good enough for where we want to be.
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You ain’t get the service if you show lack of movement in the first place. Defenders love to defend against players who don’t move, easy to defend.
 
Womp said:
We are terribly coached and have been for a long time - but players like Greenwood and Rashford can sometimes transcend that purely due to their movement and runs in behind etc. Martial doesn't offer that threat nearly as often/reliably. He needs to be in a very specific set up to succeed, which is why we've seen very little (at least consistently) from him since LVG has left. Incredible potential, average player.

Cut our losses, buy Haaland
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Who is coaching this movement and these runs in behind? You can’t just invent a narrative that we are poorly coached and ignore all the stuff that gets us goals and points and wins and good league position. Good coaching equals winning over a long period.
 
He's pissing me off at the moment. Poor form or not but he doesn't seem to put full effort in neither.
 
Godfather said:
He's pissing me off at the moment. Poor form or not but he doesn't seem to put full effort in neither.
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Agred. Poor form is one thing but the lack of effort is unforgivable. His movement has always been close to non existent and he makes zero effort defensively either. We're playing with 10 when he starts at the moment and the difference between him and Cavani is night and day. In the bin you go.
 
Everyone saying we barely created anything for him did not watch the game. Martial was dreadful last night, not one bit of positive. Normally, if he doesnt score his all round game is good but there was none of that yesterday. He couldn't hold the ball up, couldn't pass, couldn't dribble, kept giving fouls away.

One of the worst CF displays of the season.
 
And to be honest he just isn't a number 9. If he wants to accept it or not. But his movement in the box is non existent and his heading is pretty shit most of the time. Let him and Rashford fight it out for the left wing spot as they did under Mou and get a striker an a RW in.
 
We've played 20 games in the league, and he's been good for 25 minutes total.
I'm sure there's a good player in there, he's shown that from time to time (even multiple games in a row last season), but his floor is basement level, and he tends to stay there for way to long. He's actually moved in to the basement it seems like.

His attitude and work rate is the thing I hate the most, though. No passion, no pride. Nagging, whinging, "I give up on every ball that isn't inch perfect"-attitude, and that trademark crybaby look on his face whenever he fails to do his own damn job.

He needs to wake up, and wake up quickly.
 
Skåre Willoch said:
We've played 20 games in the league, and he's been good for 25 minutes total.
I'm sure there's a good player in there, he's shown that from time to time (even multiple games in a row last season), but his floor is basement level, and he tends to stay there for way to long. He's actually moved in to the basement it seems like.

His attitude and work rate is the thing I hate the most, though. No passion, no pride. Nagging, whinging, "I give up on every ball that isn't inch perfect"-attitude, and that trademark crybaby look on his face whenever he fails to do his own damn job.

He needs to wake up, and wake up quickly.
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Completely agree. Last night was a Fergie-boot-to-Beckham’s-head style performance. We had 10 players who played badly and 1 who could not give a shit. A performance which should get him dropped for the rest of the season considering how he’s played since the start as well. He’s single-handedly derailing our season, and we’ll never achieve anything if we don’t drop him right now. Awful striker.
 
Jose was wrong on so many things but calling Martial a left forward wasn't one.
 
Pretzels81 said:
We made a mistake selling Depay and sticking with Martial.
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Ah come on. Depay was hapless for us. Another flash git who thought he'd made it at United. I was glad we sold him, couldn't care less what he's done at Lyon.

I suspect I'll feel the same if we sold Martial and got a better replacement in.
 
RashyForPM said:
Completely agree. Last night was a Fergie-boot-to-Beckham’s-head style performance. We had 10 players who played badly and 1 who could not give a shit. A performance which should get him dropped for the rest of the season considering how he’s played since the start as well. He’s single-handedly derailing our season, and we’ll never achieve anything if we don’t drop him right now. Awful striker.
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Up to Ole. His fault if he doesn't.
 
Pretzels81 said:
Up to Ole. His fault if he doesn't.
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Yeah. In the first half of last season it was our complete lack of creativity coming from Lingard/Pereira at #10 that screwed us over. Couldn’t blame Ole for that as there was no alternative. Now we have a world class, seasoned striker on the bench in Cavani who seemingly no matter what he does, cannot displace Martial. Ole must realise that his blind loyalty to Martial this season is unfortunately going to lose us trophies and ultimately his job.
 
Pablo18th said:
He's having dry spell, every forward goes through these types of periods. He will be crucial as the season goes on.
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Dry spells don't span the entirety of the fecking season. I won't be surprised if maguire ends up with more goals than martial at the end of the season.

He cant dribble past players, he cant run past players, he cant hold the ball, he cant make runs into the box, he cant pass except sideways or back to the halfway line to one of the defenders, he cant track back. Dry spell my arse.
 
SinNombre said:
We created 0.99 xG against Sheffield United at home.

The problem is and remains our chance creation, which is well below elite teams.

City constantly creates 3+ xG against these kind of teams.

Our fans have a strange estimation of our finishing vs chance creation.
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I'm not talking about chances created or xG's, whatever the feck that is.

You make it sound like the forward's part in all of this is just putting the ball in the net, a simple tap-in.
Top forwards make their own chances, by themselves or by clever movement's, quick one, two's, etc.
They even score out of nothing.

Martial doesn't do that. Hell, this season he doesn't even do tap-ins anymore.
Cos his movement is shit.
He want's the ball in his feet, does a fancy dribble and flufs the shot.

You put Kane or Haaland in our team and we become elite team you speak of.
Why? Because a TOP forward does that.

He wins you the league. Robin did it for a season. Ruud did for two seasons.

We need a 25+ goal per season CF. Martial isn't that.
The sooner Ole realizes that, the sooner we win the league.

Kostov said:
Only in some parallel United fans universe.
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Why?
Martial has 2 goals in 16 games this season.
If we had a CF who scores a goal per game (Haaland has 14 goals in 13 games) that would add 14 goals.
We are already joint top scorers with 37, add 14 goals and that's easily 10 points more.
 
The crux if it is even in any kind of form from Martial and i feel we'd be anything from 4 to 6 points better off, 2 goals in 16 games is awful and yes all strikers go through these types of spells at one stage or another and its easy to forgive, the thing that's not easy to forgive is lack of effort and running when you are in a bad run these are some of the things you just have to put in to pull yourself out of it he has a tendency to just sulk and let his shoulders and head go down and its not good enough.
 
DWelbz19 said:
I think it’s perfectly fair to judge a starting striker for a team second in the league who has 2 goals in 16 matches.
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And 6 seasons with the club to boot. I don't like this soft mentality approach. Do or die, you're not allowed to have multiple 'dry spells' where you contribution is litterly zero. If his dry spell included anything at all, it would be forgivable. E.g. James runs his socks off.
 
Gavinb33 said:
The crux if it is even in any kind of form from Martial and i feel we'd be anything from 4 to 6 points better off, 2 goals in 16 games is awful and yes all strikers go through these types of spells at one stage or another and its easy to forgive, the thing that's not easy to forgive is lack of effort and running when you are in a bad run these are some of the things you just have to put in to pull yourself out of it he has a tendency to just sulk and let his shoulders and head go down and its not good enough.
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a bad run is fine it happens but you should always try, it’s the bare minimum.
 
Martial's not improved since he got here. 6 seasons. You could argue even with how he ended last season he's regressed. He's had purple patches, but more often than not its been surrounded by prolonged periods of frustrating performances.

I don't get how he not embarrassed to see a 33 year old bloke out working him game after game, doing everything he should be doing a million times better.
 
He's not a number 9 & will never be a no.9

Ole should buy the Henry boxset & tell him to study him & play like him. He's obviously not Thierry Henry & never will be but he has the attributes to play the same way & be a lot more effective.

Rashford & Martial play off the left, it's one or other in the team, let them fight it out
 
I had a massive problem with Rashford and him getting the wages they did on their contracts despite not doing anything to deserve those markups.

Case in point now, we're going to have a hard time selling a player for a fee above 40m when his wages are that high.

Someone has to take an interest in him and trust him enough to be first choice, and based on what he's shown for us this season, that may be hard to come by.

If he was trying, sure, but the complete lack of application is shocking.
 
Brexit_Brigade said:
This is because the majority of people are morons who remember nothing beyond the last couple of months (and that's being generous).

Martial has been diabolical this season, obviously. No one's going to argue otherwise. But for some reason, it's not enough to stop there, so they need to make out like he's been shite all along.
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Absolute joke of a post
 
To answer the question, absolutely positively not. He has always had the raw talent to succeed but the footballing brain and work ethic seem to be severely lacking.
 
He should be back up at best. We should have signed Sancho in the summer
First choice
Rashford Cavani Sancho
Back up
Martial Greenwood Diallo
 
Far more angry with Martial than Tuenzebe last night. Said it last night, he has no desire to fight for the shirt.

If he left on a free today I honestly wouldn't give two fecks. Nothing about him makes me want to see him in a United shirt again.
 
DickDastardly said:
Why?
Martial has 2 goals in 16 games this season.
If we had a CF who scores a goal per game (Haaland has 14 goals in 13 games) that would add 14 goals.
We are already joint top scorers with 37, add 14 goals and that's easily 10 points more.
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We have other big problems besides him, replacing him with a top top striker would solve just part of our problems, but it won't solve our CDM issue, CB issue, and RW issue. We create feck all and that's partly due to our ST but not only because of it.
 
K Stand Knut said:
Is this even a debate anymore.

Hes an embarrassment! I called it to my mates pre-game and then after he had a rest after 1 minute.

Absolute waste of space.

Our front 3 should be Rashford , Cavani and Greenwood.

Martial can play to allow the others to rest.
All he’s good for
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This is where I have been for a while. I'd love to sell him in the Summer.
 
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