Marcus Rashford vs Anthony Martial (2017 / 2018 Season)

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yfoFC said:
Rashford playing on the left is a square peg in a round hole but it's working out

Lukaku looking good running at their defence from the RW is a square peg in a round hole

Heck, mata playing RW is a square peg in a round hole

But suddenly either one of martial or rashford playing there is seen as unthinkable?
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I don't understand how we can test the Martial and Rashford can't play RW or in the hole unless you give them a sustained run there of like 5-7 games. It will take time and some patience to see if they can become accustomed to the role but it's a gamble worth taking imo as our attack at the moment is hardly firing on all cylinders.
 
Dante said:
Martial gets a lot of praise because he's French. If he were English like Rashford, we wouldn't be hearing the same plaudits from the media.
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Say whaa?

Who has been likened to mbappe recently?

Who puts in excellent performances and never gets a call up for the NT with no one batting an eyelid?

Your proposition and conclusion is false especially at a time when rashford is the media darling as of now with martial's poor season making him yesterday's news
 
While I do think they're skilled players, I'm not blown away by them, to the level that the hype here reaches. They both need to leave Utd for regular playing time if they want the best for themselves. That's what I'd do.
Dante said:
Martial gets a lot of praise because he's French. If he were English like Rashford, we wouldn't be hearing the same plaudits from the media.
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This is probably because nobody believes in England or England youth anymore, at least I don't, not really - even if they did win the youth World Cups. The French super talents are doing awesomely though, they've been flavour of the month for ages now. Martial is (or partly, was) part of that image.
yfoFC said:
Say whaa?

Who has been likened to mbappe recently?

Who puts in excellent performances and never gets a call up for the NT with no one batting an eyelid?

Your proposition and conclusion is false especially at a time when rashford is the media darling as of now with martial's poor season making him yesterday's news
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Only Utd fans are saying that, I think...
 
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Raees said:
I don't understand how we can test the Martial and Rashford can't play RW or in the hole unless you give them a sustained run there of like 5-7 games. It will take time and some patience to see if they can become accustomed to the role but it's a gamble worth taking imo as our attack at the moment is hardly firing on all cylinders.
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Agreed, only 2 out of our 4 forward positions seem to be working recently(and I'm being slightly generous to lukaku ATM) so making it 3/4 can only make us that much better
 
Just play them fecking both José! Our other alternatives that José uses on the right of the 3 don't offer as much as any of these two would in that position imo. It just beggars belief that he only see's them both as playing on the left.
 
yfoFC said:
Say whaa?

Who has been likened to mbappe recently?

Who puts in excellent performances and never gets a call up for the NT with no one batting an eyelid?

Your proposition and conclusion is false especially at a time when rashford is the media darling as of now with martial's poor season making him yesterday's news
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One bloke made a thread about Rashford v Mbappe on the Caf. About 2 or 3 people agreed. Nobody in the media did as you're claiming. Meanwhile, at lease a dozen (possibly more) made the comparison between Mbappe and Martial.

You're desire to seek out controversy and find outrage has blinded you to the reality.

I love both and don't have a favourite. I guess that makes me relatively immune to being blinded by agenda.
 
Dont like the concept of comparing both. I am a Martial fan, but i love Rashers as well. But this continuous comparison and rotation makes me unconciously wish Rashers to perform below par so as to watch Martial a bit more. Martial is entertaining as a player so i would love to watch him week in week out, but not at the expense of Rashford. Also it is polarizing fans because in order to praise one they end up being too harsh on the other one. Not good in the long run imo.
 
Amazed at how many journos miss what Mourinho is doing here - he’s making two young players have to compete with each other so they both raise each other’s level. It’s a very clever way of keeping two young players focused and on track over a season. If they were both given guaranteed first team starting places it would be a risk at this stage of creating complacency. Very good man management.
 
I think we would actually be more erratic in possession with both of them on the field. They're both inconsistent in their decision making, which is understandable at their age. Also, they're similar type of players, both like to run at defenders, and both are more suited to come in from the left in order to get shots of.

Even if Mikhi and Mata haven't been great, I can still see why Mourinho prefers them. They are experienced and bring something different to the game. We need them to keep control of possession, even though Mikhi has been loosing the ball alot, I would still trust him to make the right decisions ahead of Rashford and Martial.


Now if they develop into the players most think they are capable of, then Mourinho is gonna have to find a way to play them together, even if it means changing some things up with the formation. The problem is, some seem to think they're already at that level, which I can't really see.
 
Nuts said:
Amazed at how many journos miss what Mourinho is doing here - he’s making two young players have to compete with each other so they both raise each other’s level. It’s a very clever way of keeping two young players focused and on track over a season. If they were both given guaranteed first team starting places it would be a risk at this stage of creating complacency. Very good man management.
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Yeah, I agree. This gives them even more of a reason to work hard and develop their game. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don't work on your game, it's not of much use.
 
A better passer at rightback and a third midfielder (rather than a #10) would allow us to play both.

Mkhitaryan plays behind Lukaku because he's the only player we have who's excellent at finding space between the lines. Mata plays on the right because he's great in possession and can mitigate Mkhitaryan's inability to look after the ball. Valencia plays at rightback because he's physically dominant and can cover the whole flank on his own without needing Mata to pitch in too much - but his distribution is as unimaginative as it comes. The problem is they all have their own strengths/weaknesses which necessitate us playing a 4-2-3-1 that excludes one of Martial/Rashford.

We don't have the personnel to setup in a different system that allows us to play both. So we're stuck with one or the other until new recruits come in.
 
Janson said:
I think we would actually be more erratic in possession with both of them on the field. They're both inconsistent in their decision making, which is understandable at their age. Also, they're similar type of players, both like to run at defenders, and both are more suited to come in from the left in order to get shots of.

Even if Mikhi and Mata haven't been great, I can still see why Mourinho prefers them. They are experienced and bring something different to the game. We need them to keep control of possession, even though Mikhi has been loosing the ball alot, I would still trust him to make the right decisions ahead of Rashford and Martial.
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Don't think we need to waste our RW on someone to keep things ticking, especially in a counter-attacking side. That should be the job of the midfield and #10 to a degree (which is why I want to see Mata there). Wide attackers are supposed to be some of the main threats in a team and if all one does is keep possession, it puts far too much pressure on the other (which happens to be one of our youngsters) to come up with some magic. I wouldn't mind our RW losing the ball every now and then if they're at least a constant threat that defenders have to worry about. Mata ends up being a non-factor a lot of the time and all this extra possession we supposedly benefit from doesn't make a difference really. We just end up with our LW being doubled up on as they're recognised as the real threat that will attack the opposition.
 
Mata doesn't have the awareness of space to play as a #10 the way Mourinho likes.

Mata plays looking for the ball, as opposed to trying to sniff out pockets of space that disrupts opposition formations. I'm not Mkhitaryan's biggest believer, but it's evident that's the main thing he has over Mata. Just watch the two of them in real-time. Mkhitaryan is like a meerkat - constantly looking over his shoulders and behind himself to find the best place to position himself. Mata plays with his head almost permanently looking at the ball, with little regard for helping the break the lines. Lingard is in the Mkhitaryan mould in that regard.

As long as Mkhitaryan/Lingard play, we won't have Rashford on the right. And Mkhitaryan/Lingard will always play because Mourinho loves what they bring to the table. Incidentally, I don't think Griezmann would solve the conundrum. His protection of the ball isn't good enough to make up for the absence of Mata in the lineup.

EDIT: But Ozil would. Though as I said above, I'd prefer another midfielder and a switch to 4-3-3.
 
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Dante said:
One bloke made a thread about Rashford v Mbappe on the Caf. About 2 or 3 people agreed. Nobody in the media did as you're claiming. Meanwhile, at lease a dozen (possibly more) made the comparison between Mbappe and Martial.

You're desire to seek out controversy and find outrage has blinded you to the reality.

I love both and don't have a favourite. I guess that makes me relatively immune to being blinded by agenda.
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If you're so immune to being blinded by agenda then by all means show me proof of martial being praised 'cause he's french as I've done

It's funny how you want to take the high road now after making this statement

Dante said:
Martial gets a lot of praise because he's French. If he were English like Rashford, we wouldn't be hearing the same plaudits from the media.
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Who's the one stirring up controversy here and bringing up an agenda between us now? I just called you out on your claims and didn't make any of mine so please back up your post before you claim to be this impartial Zen observer
 
SS said:
Don't think we need to waste our RW on someone to keep things ticking, especially in a counter-attacking side. That should be the job of the midfield and #10 to a degree (which is why I want to see Mata there). Wide attackers are supposed to be some of the main threats in a team and if all one does is keep possession, it puts far too much pressure on the other (which happens to be one of our youngsters) to come up with some magic. I wouldn't mind our RW losing the ball every now and then if they're at least a constant threat that defenders have to worry about. Mata ends up being a non-factor a lot of the time and all this extra possession we supposedly benefit from doesn't make a difference really. We just end up with our LW being doubled up on as they're recognised as the real threat that will attack the opposition.
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We will dominate possession against most teams in the league, it's only against the top teams that we look to play on the counter. It is the games where we have a lot of the ball, when we need smart players who help organise the attacks, keep it ticking and who don't create too many turnovers.

As for countering like you mentioned, I don't see what the problem would be to have both Rash and Martial on either side. You just remove Mata since he isn't of much use in those games and play with 3 in midfield. Although I suspect Mourinho feels it's too risky trusting two inexperienced players against top teams.

As for the bolded part. It doesn't mean that Mata is there only to keep our play ticking and doesn't offer any threat going forward. And that we have to rely only on the LW to make something happened. Last season Mata was contributing with more end product, I think he had the most goals after Ibra if I'm not mistaken. He used to make clever runs in behind also, where Pogba and Ibra could find him. We haven't seen him doing that much lately because the dynamic has changed. Although I suspect when Pogba is back, he will make both Mikhi and Mata's job easier.

Just having your wide men running at players from the wing all the time, trying to create something out of nothing, isn't the way to go. You mostly need to try and get in good positions and close in on goal by clever passing, and combinations.
 
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Janson said:
I think we would actually be more erratic in possession with both of them on the field.
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Is it even possible for us to be more erratic in possession than we already are currently?

Put rashford in place of lingard on Tuesday and can you honestly tell me we would lose the ball any worse as a result?

Also, they're similar type of players, both like to run at defenders, and both are more suited to come in from the left in order to get shots of.
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Bale and ronaldo like running at defenders and it worked out for them for years and rashford plays down the right for England and is considered their most dangerous attacker alongside Kane.

Even if Mikhi and Mata haven't been great, I can still see why Mourinho prefers them. They are experienced and bring something different to the game. We need them to keep control of possession, even though Mikhi has been loosing the ball alot, I would still trust him to make the right decisions ahead of Rashford and Martial.
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Forgive me but I just find this a whole load of theoretical jargons that have no basis in reality especially the emboldened part

For one thing mata and michy haven't been keeping possession for the past few weeks and only do so on paper, the former does feck all with possession to the extent we can stick a lamppost in his position and it'd offer as much of a threat as he does (spoiler alert, none at all). While the less said about the latter the better for everyone.

Why we persist with something that is clearly not working is beyond me, it's a mini version of let's play Rooney 'cause he is our most dangerous attacker during lvg days. On paper it's a sound argument but in reality it clearly wasn't working out so why try and defend/justify these appalling performances we have been served in the last few weeks?

And we'd win games with Rooney in our team so that would be the justification for the "let's keep things the way they are camp"

The problem is, some seem to think they're already at that level, which I can't really see.
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We don't need to wait until martial and rashford develop to their full potential when they're already playing at a higher level than the people keeping them out of the starting lineup together.
 
Raees said:
I don't understand how we can test the Martial and Rashford can't play RW or in the hole unless you give them a sustained run there of like 5-7 games. It will take time and some patience to see if they can become accustomed to the role but it's a gamble worth taking imo as our attack at the moment is hardly firing on all cylinders.
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Martial and Rashford are our most exciting and creative players at the moment. I'd be trying to set a team up where I could get both of them on the pitch at the same time, especially when we don't have Pogba available. I'd love to know the reason why Jose hasn't even tried it once. Hope its not stubbornness.
 
Playing them together with Lukaku would actually offer us a different dimension in attack to the way we are set up now with Mata being tasked with ball circulation on that right wing. All 3 are primarily striker by trade so depends on the game, the opponents they are facing etc we can have 2 as strikers, Lukaku drifting to the right with one of Martial/Rashford occupying that central space. I do think though that combo needs more defensive cover from midfield so Pogba as head of a 3 and ditching Mkhitaryan is necessary.

Overall though there's no good reason to keep one or the other on the bench when our football in general has been dire to watch and crying out for some directness/creativity. I'd take the opponents getting a few more shots off at our world class GK over watching us having no clue what to do in the final 3rd.
 
All three on the pitch today with Martial on the right. Clear as day he isn't comfortable.

The sooner we realise that having both alongside Lukaku will not make that much of a difference to us in attack the better.
 
El Jefe said:
All three on the pitch today with Martial on the right. Clear as day he isn't comfortable.

The sooner we realise that having both alongside Lukaku will not make that much of a difference to us in attack the better.
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I don't get why Rashford isn't played on the right instead, Mourinho obviously values his crossing ability a lot as he's on every set piece. So have Martial on the left so he can cut in and out, and Rashford on the right using his pace down the flank and crossing it in with his stronger foot for Lukaku etc.
 
El Jefe said:
All three on the pitch today with Martial on the right. Clear as day he isn't comfortable.

The sooner we realise that having both alongside Lukaku will not make that much of a difference to us in attack the better.
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Rashford has played on the right successfully in the past a decent amount of times. No reason why he can't play there now, especially when Martial is our most productive player and the others are useless.

Also, what will make us attack better is how Mourinho trains them in terms of attacking play and getting a style that will actually create chances through design, rather then rely on individual bits of quality to create chances.
 
El Jefe said:
All three on the pitch today with Martial on the right. Clear as day he isn't comfortable.

The sooner we realise that having both alongside Lukaku will not make that much of a difference to us in attack the better.
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It's a bit daft to use this match as an excuse as to why we can't play all 3. We reverted to 3 up top and just hoofed the ball up every chance we had in a match where we lost all sense of control after the first 20 mins.
 
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Martial didn't look comfortable on the right, but we still looked better when Martial came on and Mkhi went off, though it may have more to do with Mkhi not stinking up the place more than anything. I'd like to see more of it in a 4-3-3 with Rashford on the right, hopefully when Pogba returns. Can it possibly be any more imbalanced than constantly being overrun in midfield and having no presence on the right, as has happened in the last 10 weeks or however long Pogba's been gone.
 
El Jefe said:
All three on the pitch today with Martial on the right. Clear as day he isn't comfortable.

The sooner we realise that having both alongside Lukaku will not make that much of a difference to us in attack the better.
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You based this after watching a 30 minutes spell of hoofball by us.
 
---------------lukaku
-----------martial
rashford-----------------valencia
---------matic----pogba--
Jones------smalling-------bailly
--------------gea

Id love to see this tried out.
 
At such a young age playing both in the first team and international team will burn both out till the end.

I really think we should buy a winger and take little pressure of both.

We should try Sanchez.
 
Rashford is the odd one out. Lukaku and Martial atleast have some sort of understanding.
 
MThomas said:
Introduce a third player they have to rotate with and Martial will most def be gone before the 2018/2019 season.
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Rotate them with lukaku too or put 2 inside the box while attacking and needing goals.
 
Santoryo said:
You based this after watching a 30 minutes spell of hoofball by us.
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Well that and watching Marcus and Martial for 3 seasons now and knowing both aren't right wingers and aren't even left wingers but happen to be more comfortable there. They are both strikers, who happen to be able to do a job out wide.

Their best form for the club has come up front. The real problem is we're unable to use both up front as much as we should.
 
UnitedBoy said:
---------------lukaku
-----------martial
rashford-----------------valencia
---------matic----pogba--
Jones------smalling-------bailly
--------------gea

Id love to see this tried out.
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Seriously, 10?
 
El Jefe said:
Well that and watching Marcus and Martial for 3 seasons now and knowing both aren't right wingers and aren't even left wingers but happen to be more comfortable there. They are both strikers, who happen to be able to do a job out wide.

Their best form for the club has come up front. The real problem is we're unable to use both up front as much as we should.
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True.
 
El Jefe said:
Well that and watching Marcus and Martial for 3 seasons now and knowing both aren't right wingers and aren't even left wingers but happen to be more comfortable there. They are both strikers, who happen to be able to do a job out wide.

Their best form for the club has come up front. The real problem is we're unable to use both up front as much as we should.
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Not Martial, I'm sorry but that's just wrong.
 
MThomas said:
Mourinho has shown no interest in rotating Lukaku, and given the focus on his performances, which are largely brought out by Mourinho, you can bet your house he isn't going to start rotating him anytime soon.
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That's because we don't have any wingers.
 
MThomas said:
We don't rotate Lukaku because we don't have any wingers ?
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Because both of them are too young to play as sole strikers and needs to put in with lukaku or in off games replace him for different attacking dynamics with some wingers to fill their spot.
 
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