I love Martial and i think he is a clever players and has a lot of tricks up his sleeve but he isn't a hard worker and that personally bums me out. When Ighalo steps in, there is a lot of things that change in terms of the teams shape around the goal and the way he move around the striker. Every big team needs a striker who will force things to happen all the time. He must push people around and must command the ball in dangerous areas. I don't see our players really putting Martial ahead of their own in terms of passing him the ball whenever he is in the box and more so than not, he isn't in the box to begin with. I think Rashford must stay on the left and Sancho can come in on the right or maybe James but we really need to find a stronger striker and also find a way to fit Martial in the line-up because he's an asset regardless of all the weaknesses he has.
Has Martial done enough to be backed as our long-term #9?
- Thread starter MyOnlySolskjaer
- Start date
Look at my ‘Rank our strikers over the last 30 years’ - most people have put Martial at or near the bottom of the list. Not good enough.
He's basically played in that position for one season for us. Half a season in his debut season, and then this season before it was postponed. Of course he's going to be on the lower end.
I don't think anybody will deny he has the ability to move significantly up that list, so what it boils down to is how likely do people think that is. Those that think he won't do it will of course want him replaced. Those who think that he has a strong chance of stepping up will generally want him given one more proper season (with actual quality support for once) to prove it one way or the other.
With finances tight, the pandemic and all, yes, back Martial, at the very least for next season.
I don't know about long term but he's earned the chance for another season or two. The trouble with him is that he can be so frustrating, looks world class one moment and then can't be bothered for long strtetches.
He did have a few invisible matches last season.But as a whole, I thought he was very good. Good enough to prevent us spending speculative money on a striker.
Hopefully our squad next season allows him to show his worth:
-----------------------Martial------------------
--Rashford------Bruno-------------Sancho--
---------------Pogba--------Fred-------------
Hopefully our squad next season allows him to show his worth:
-----------------------Martial------------------
--Rashford------Bruno-------------Sancho--
---------------Pogba--------Fred-------------
That's because Ighalo is more a predatory striker type player than Martial.
Martial isnt the hardest of workers - but that doesnt make him straight up lazy & the fact that he wants to be involved in the build up of play is the sentiment of that. He wants to play deep and be a part of the build up process - a cog of the machine rather than the spearhead of the attack. He is a support striker and a false 9 aiming to get the wider forwards like Rashford & Greenwood to score more.
When people saw Ighalo playing upfront for us - Rashford was injured, Greenwood was still being inconsistent and people seemed so surprised that Ighalo looked like this wonderful striker that Martial isnt - it's because we shifted to a team where our CF (martial) had to lead the line when Rashford got injured rather than playing a supportive one to get Rashford, Greenwood and James to be Goalscorers.
The fact is Lukaku would be just as good as Ighalo upfront when playing against poor teams & asking him to lead the line as a predatory striker - but how would he play when he is asked to interlink with the uninjured Rashford and Greenwood either side of him in a 433 or a 4231? Decent in some games maybe but sure there will be just as many complaints about Martial when playing next to Rashford & Greenwood as there would be Ighalo or Lukaku playing in that formation.
We hardly have fullbacks that can cross, we hardly had a midfielder for the whole of the season that was fit enough to provide an assist, we had our first good CAM bought after god knows how long, our LW and RW are actually LF and RF playing forward roles striking from angles to become more efficient like aubameyang does for arsenal, we have arguably one good ball playing defender, our goal keeper isnt the best at long passes either - dont underestimate what a creative striker or a supportive striker can do when we have first team decisions like this and our goal scorers are playing out wide.
you could make the same case for many of players starting right now. The list is biased and shouldn’t hold much weight till the players leave or have retired then you could make a better analysis of how good they were for United. Having said that I wonder were most of us would rank rashford if we made the same list.
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Wow. Who do you consider the top 5 strikers and top 5 wingers in the league?
Also we definitely wouldn't be 5th if Rashford Bruno and Pogba were present
This logic only applies to Martial with certain posters. You have similar arguments such as "Look at out past strikers" then they proceed to name our best strikers ever in their primes. Yet they never apply that same argument to gauge the rest of the squad, it has to be limited to Martial so they can more reasons to throw in some more criticism.
Top striker augero, Kane, aubameyang, martial and vardy.
top wingers - Mane, Salah, Sterling, Mahrez and Sane.
I’ve come to find that context is always missing. The argument is always he has been here for 5 years but hasn’t progressed which insinuates he has played as a striker for those 5 years. But we know that isn’t true and this is his first season leading us consistently.
He has done well enough for me personally. Led the line well and shown up in multiple big games while receiving little to no support. Him having off games is expected especially when our best players are injured. The responsibility always fall on him alone most of the time.
When you apply context and actually look at his numbers this season without any bias or agenda, it's clear he's done well so far, especially under the circumstances(team devoid of creativity for the majority of the season). He's a big game player, scores in massive games and has kept his scoring consistent this season, especially of late when we brought in a creative player behind him.
He's 24 and improving. Soon he'll enter his prime and his numbers should be expected to go up. Honestly it's not even hard to figure any of this but I don't expect some people on these boards to understand that so you just let them be, and they write whatever they want.
I find it pointless engaging in these back and forth with people who clearly aren't applying any sort of context and are just itching to vent or crap on our players.
He's earned the spot for tomorrow's game (whenever that may be, not literally tomorrow, you dingbat!). On any given day, he can be surpassed, in which case he'd better work harder or he'll stay on the bench or get shipped out. And that's how it should be at the other 10 positions, too.
That said, realistically, you earn some leeway. I think he's done that, Greenwood has not. But there's always next day, week, month, year...
That said, realistically, you earn some leeway. I think he's done that, Greenwood has not. But there's always next day, week, month, year...
What exactly makes you rank Martial top 5 because he definitely isn't. Martial hasn't played as a striker in years and there are currently 7 strikers that have more goals than him. What am saying is, it's his first time as a striker in years so it's a bit like getting a new striker and if that new striker comes and is the 8th highest goal scorer nobody is going to say he's top 5 in the league. The only evidence you have to rate Martial is this season and he is the 8th highest goal scorer. He's not top 5 by any means though he can be
Martial would be around the top of the table in goals scored if he had pogba, bruno and rashford throughout the season. Even you should agree since that was your argument in an earlier post for why we are sitting 5th eh? Also i dont base my valuation of a striker only on goals scored.
Or if he was there for those scrappy goals and tap ins. I get your point though but you're basically saying he's top 5 based on a scenario, Martial is doing well despite the circumstances but he's definitely not top 5.
And if you don't base your valuation on only goals then Firmino should be in your top 5 not Martial.
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I think he's good enough for now to start, but I'm not 100 percent convinced with him as a full on key player for us. Being key means he would need to be consistent and reliable. No.9's in the modern game have a lot more responsibility in the modern game than in the past. Martial may be able to grow into it, furthermore I believe that Greenwood will be a top player, so having Martial as a stop gap may be worth it.
I get the point and that's the problem I am talking about. He is not the striker who is in the box all the time and we need a striker that is. Martial is a great player with amazing talent and an added bonus of him able to play with both his feet but we need a striker that is good with the back against the goal and who can influence play with player running around him. Martial will be great in a 4-4-2 formation where one can play an in the box role and he can play around him also involving the wingers. Martial is amazing running towards the defenders but isn't that good against defenders who will stand still and tackle him hard. He doesn't have the physique to control the ball with the back against the goal. Yes, we do not have wingbacks that send in crosses early but with time Bissaka and Shaw along with Dalot and Williams who will learn that trait and when they do, he will be a missing link in the box. I hope Ole finds a way to play him along with a proper number 10 and maybe Sancho if it happens.
What about Firmino, Jimenez and Son?
Martial's hold up play is one of his best attributes. His main problem is that he is not always alive in the box to score tap ins and scrappy goals. If he can add that to his game, he's as complete a striker as you'll find.
I'm thinking you are a huge Martial fan because I don't really see him as a hold-up player. He cannot do that with the likes Van Dyk, Laporte, Alderweireld and such behind him.
The poster I was replying too said I could only name 5 of the best strikers and wingers. Those are very good players but they don’t make my top best. Wish I could find a way to squeeze son in because he is very quality. Jiminez and firmino are both good players.
Martial's hold up play is brilliant. Ole started seeing faults in the hold up play approach when Rashford got injured and so Martial had to be less of a player who holds up play ( why hold up play and bring Daniel James in to a goal scoring position) & so Ole changed Martial instead to become the the main man up front & be a traditional number 9 the best he can.
People started focusing on all the average but sometimes way ward first touches he would have as a central striker and call that poor hold up play as soon as he did that. He stopped having anyone to hold the ball up to and bring in to play when Rashford got injured & became the main and central striker we would rely on - not Rashford, James and Greenwood which was our previous tactic.
That's not his style, he is a support striker. It's like asking Firmino to play as Haaland and wonder why he has a poor first touches and isnt the greatest goalscorer when he is playing as the furthest man forward and everyone else is sitting deeper than him and not making runs in front of him.
I am a huge Martial fan. I'm a big fan of him largely because his link up and hold up play is excellent. As a matter of interest, who was the last player to have a good hold up game vs VVD?
That's an overstatement. Martial can't even do that with Coady behind him.
He’s done fine this season in his first as a full time no.9 with basically no playmaker until January. 17 goals isn’t shabby and he would have (and still probably will) break 20 goals. What we need to remember is for us, the days of the 30-40 goal a season striker is probably over because we will continue to look for a nice even distribution of goals from our front three - Rashford has 19, Martial 17 and if we had a right forward of the quality of Sancho, he’d be on similar figures too. 60+ goals a season is what we’d be looking for from them, plus Bruno and Pogba are both capable of 10+.
I feel he is the kind of player who'd play exponentially better with better players around him. So, to answer this if midfield of players like Bruno, Pogba and Fred become the mainstay of the team, I'd like to see how Martial does for one more season with Rashford and Greenwood/James on the sides.
If Pogba was to leave and Fred was to have a slump in his form requiring for us to use a midfield of players like Matic, McTominay, Mata, James in the team or if we buy players who aren't as creative as they're strong, physical, ball winners, get stuck in kind e.g. Herrera type of player, we would need more of a bully up front to be effective with feeding on scraps. I wouldn't be opposed to selling him or putting him as the backup in this scenario.
If Pogba was to leave and Fred was to have a slump in his form requiring for us to use a midfield of players like Matic, McTominay, Mata, James in the team or if we buy players who aren't as creative as they're strong, physical, ball winners, get stuck in kind e.g. Herrera type of player, we would need more of a bully up front to be effective with feeding on scraps. I wouldn't be opposed to selling him or putting him as the backup in this scenario.
Very well said. Also not to mention one would expect Rashford and Martial to further improve next year and their output to increase since so far they've yet to reach their prime. Both of them will likely cross that 20 mark goals for this season.
The way the team is right now with the reinforcement of Bruno and Pogba coming back, we finally have goal threat both in midfield and attack. All of Martial, Rashford, Bruno and Pogba are goal threats which is what will revitalize our attack going forward, not strikers that bangs 40-50 goals. The important thing is to have goals everywhere and not to mention that I see both Martial and Rashford as 30 goals a season going by the improvement they've shown this season alone.
His hold-up play is normally quite good. Easily better than Lukaku for example (not that that's hard). The only problem is that Martial can be a bit inconsistent with it, as seen in that match against Chelsea where he wasn't able to win any kind of duel in that situation. But he's also had other matches where he wins almost everything and holds the defenders off brilliantly. Overall that part of his game is good, but he's shown the capability to be very good which he will hopefully continue to develop.
This is a tongue in cheek response, but would Lukaku have been able to control the ball well enough to score like Ighalo v Lask :-)
I don't rate Martial particularly highly and I'm not entirely sure why others do. He can't make the national team and none of his team mates seem to mention him in their 5-aside teams or top 11's, nor has any defender evet come out and said he's difficult to play against. I just don't think it will work out for him at United.
Having said all that, his goal return this year has been much better so I can't really criticise him right now. I'd give him another full season and plan to buy a quality CF next summer either as competition for places or to replace him.
Having said all that, his goal return this year has been much better so I can't really criticise him right now. I'd give him another full season and plan to buy a quality CF next summer either as competition for places or to replace him.
That's his top 5 strikers and top 5 wingers
I'm not a Martial hater. I do not belong to that group and i think since LVG brought him to United, several managers have had several ideas with him and i'm sure he's tired of the whole charade. He was brought here for a reason, he was tremendous at Monaco and we saw the potential very early. I loved his first few games with us, he was unbelievable but i think the enthusiasm has passed but i don't blame him one bit for that because we have had a hard road. If players like Pogba have lost their ways, it's quite difficult for everyone at the club. There was too much going on around him and Jose was a harsh critic too. Playing Rashford and Martial alternatively in games was a huge mistake and it killed their confidences everyday. Thanks to Ole, things are back to how it is supposed to be. We have pushed out all the deadwood and kept what's fresh and valuable to us. I love what Ole has done since he moved to OT. The man has relentlessly pushed for younger players with an urge to win and Martial is definitely one of them. I will never agree that Martial's hold up play is very good or even good but Ole will make sure he learns how to maneuver with the ball when there is a defender right behind you. Ole was not a big guy but he scored many goals, even Xavier Hernandes is an example of a top goal scorer. Martial will eventually do well for us but he hasn't done that yet and i hope he does so very soon.
Well if you were managed by crappy managers like LVG and Jose who are asking too much from a forward player, all his ability to move forward is curbed. I will not agree if you said he's not a good player because he is excellent, he does things that other players dream of doing. His ball control capabilities are so great that i feel he just slides with it. Of course i will also say that he is not perfect but he certainly is not a bad seed. He's wonderful and will prove his worth very soon.
haha.. but i think he possesses other traits that are so good, i would want him in the playing XI every week.
Not if you're looking for RVN or Heisenberg level
Well thank god you can't really criticize him right now
not good enough.