Would you swap Martial for Messi?

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King.of.Red said:
uh, this is difficult, both are amazing players.
watching Martial, especially when he run with the ball is very exciting and I love him, while Messi is super awesome player but I dont really like him (I'm CR7 fan :D ). Besides, I still doubt that Messi legs are strong enough to break EPL team defences every match, every week. so, to conclude, I will never ever swap Martial for Messi.
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If Martial has the legs why wouldn't Messi when Messi is much better and talented
Weird logic
 
No, because I (naively) hope Martial stays here for the rest of his career, obviously he'll never be as good as Messi but he has the talent to become one of the world's best players.
 
I would swap Martial + cash for Messi this transfer window every day of the week.
Pros of the swap deal :
- we will win the league at least twice in next 3 seasons as he is capable of winning this league single handedly as there are no great teams now in EPL and the quality of top team is the worst in a decade. For a club of our stature winning trophies are very important right now especially after the debacle of last 3 seasons.
- we will be a bigger brand than we already are because we are signing arguably the best player of this planet.
- we will be benefited from commercial perspective as he will sell lots of shirts ( lots more than Martial does) and we will attract new partners as Messi will be playing for us.
- He can also help young players to develop as he will of great influence in training.
- Manchester United will be a great destination for next generation stars from South America in future as one of their heroes played for us.

Cons of the swap deal :
- we will be missing out on 70-80 mils of transfer kitty in 4-5 years whenever Martial does leave the club. Even we don't know how long we will be with us.
- Credit of nurturing and developing a future superstar which should not matter much from club perspective as we already are in good reputation for that. Selling a young player won't change that view entirely.
So from both success on the pitch and financial perspective it's a no brainer to swap Martial for Messi.
 
Enigma_87 said:
Messi of course.
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I agree, but judging from people's answers, it appears that some people are not interested in the swap.
Perhaps replacing a decent young player with a player who is several levels above him (and will transform us into title favourites), does not interest some fans.
 
sunama said:
I agree, but judging from people's answers, it appears that some people are not interested in the swap.
Perhaps replacing a decent young player with a player who is several levels above him (and will transform us into title favourites), does not interest some fans.
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People tend to get romantic and like to witness how the player grows into his peak so understandable. That and because Martial is likable chap playing for us,while on the other hand Messi in his prime and quite possibly about 0.0001% chance of us acquiring him.
 
Swap martial with Messi

Sell Messi for 150M

Buy 2 next martial

no ???

Win!

PS: Martial is an exciting talent, but he's nowhere near BPITW. We're lucky if he turns out to be a Henry... and that's discounting X factor (injuries, loss of form, etc). Messi is the greatest of all time, 3 years from him will simply means 3 title (or at least 1-2). We're not pokemon ranch, our aim is to win titles, and 2 titles in 3 years beats any future planning bullshit in my book. Even at the pinacle of SAF we only managed to win the league 3 times in a row, with today's strong teams we'd be lucky to win 1 or 2, and stop taking things for granted thinking that if we give youth 5 years we'll have another team of 99 on our hands, they could simply ended up like TC23 and Fletcher (good player but wasn't a world class midfielder we need)
 
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I think he would fit in nicely with the lads!
 
Pexbo said:
I'd rather 15 years of Martial vs the 5 latter years of Messi which is the point of the thread really.
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No guarantee Martial will stay for 15 years. Doubtful even.

You swap Martial for Messi every time. Martial has had a great start but there's no guarantee he will become even one of the best in the world.
 
How can you even put Martial in the same sentence as Messi?

Seriously. I like the guy and everything but I think that rumoured "future Ballon d'Or winner" clause in his contract has brainwashed everyone into thinking he will be a world beater. There's no guarantees.

He's only 20 remember. Messi was already up for the Ballon d'Or at that age.
 
If Martial continues his progress at the same pace, in a couple of years Barcelona gladly would.
 
Pexbo said:
That's your endgame? 4-5 years rather than 10-15?
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I highly doubt Messi has only 4-5 years in him. At 34 you can expect him to maybe leave the stratospheric level he is at now and be merely world class. I give him another 8 years.
 
Effectively asking if you would trade the best player in the world for the best young player in the world.

Under normal circumstances, I'd say Martial, as he's already our best player at 20. However, Messi is ridiculous. I wouldn't swap Martial for Ronaldo but I would for Messi.
 
Martial might make the top 10 players in the world, in the next 3/4 years. By that time I'd expect Real or Barca to be in for him. And it's Messi we're talking about so, yeah, I'd swap him for Messi.
 
Prodigal7 said:
So what it's more physical? That's irrelevant. These small and skilful players don't try to compete physically because that's not their game and if their teammates try to lump speculative crosses into them then obviously they are going to fail because that's not their game. It doesn't matter where you are in the world the rules of football are always the same. small and technical non English teams seem to do pretty well against the so called physical English teams whenever they play them in the CL, in fact they almost always beat them with quality rather than physicality. The question would be do Messi's teammates have the quality and ability to pass/move and create chances rather than lump it to a big man, which clearly wouldn't suit him.
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Irrelevant? Completly disagree.
 
Messi isn't going into terminal decline anytime soon. Even if he's reduced to 35 goals/15 assists each of the next three seasons he'd be a massive upgrade over Martial.

6-8 years from now? Sure. It's a safe bet Martial will be playing at a higher level than Messi in 6-8 years, but who wants to wait that long while passing up (in this fantasy thought exercise) the top footballer on the planet for the next 3 seasons?
 
In one sense this is what you may call an interesting thread.

In another sense it's just a ridiculous hypothetical question most people will answer “yes” to.

But taken in the first sense, I think it's interesting. We have lots of members here who don't care at all about what is simply brushed aside as “sentimentality” - that much is clear.

I once said on here that I'd rather have Welbeck than Messi – on general principle. And I meant it. Less than criminally stupid members will of course understand that I wasn't actually rating the pair of them as footballers when making that statement.

I find it particularly interesting that so many – seemingly – identify their own “ambition” as that of the club. * As though being a fan is nothing more than supporting any imaginable course of action that would likely make the team win trophies.

“Feck the academy – what's it done for me lately?”

“Youth is overrated!”

“We don't need squad players!”

And so forth. No, it isn't immediately germane to the hypothetical question posed in the OP (so don't pretend that is what I'm implying), I just find much of this interesting in a wider sense: What is United to people these days?

* Or rather, they impose their own "ambition" (which is that of a child: "We should win everything and have all the best players") not only on the club, but on their fellow supporters (who are frequently berated for not being ambitious enough, these people seemingly thinking - as only a child, someone who lives in a fantasy world, would - that this actually matters).
 
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Any other player I'd probably swap but Martial is very special and he would feel more like our player, I'd like to see him win trophies with us and he's so young so you'd get more years out of him. He obviously isn't as good as Messi nor will he ever be but that's not the question.
 
The sad truth is that Griezmann is much better than Martial.

And of course, many other players are much better than Martial, let's not kid ourselves.

Martial is still a nobody, no comparison with Messi, shouldn't even be in the same sentence.
 
nick2004 said:
The sad truth is that Griezmann is much better than Martial.

And of course, many other players are much better than Martial, let's not kid ourselves.

Martial is still a nobody, no comparison with Messi, shouldn't even be in the same sentence.
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I think the question of swapping is to make a decision between a player at the top now and the player Martial can become. Risk and reward. So its harsh to compare him to players like Griezmann ect...
 
Without a second thought and in a heartbeat.

I mean it's not like it is just another world class player. It is Lionel Messi.. Absolute no brainer.. Even if Messi is only half as good as what he was at Barca for the next 5 years, he would easily break all sorts of PL records even at that level..
 
nick2004 said:
The sad truth is that Griezmann is much better than Martial.

And of course, many other players are much better than Martial, let's not kid ourselves.

Martial is still a nobody, no comparison with Messi, shouldn't even be in the same sentence.
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Given they play roughly the same position. It is fair to say that Martial was better than a 20 year old Greizmann who was still two years away from playing for a less talented French team at 20.

That said the thread is stupid. I would carry Martial all the way to Barcelona myself if we were getting Messi in return.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Given they play roughly the same position. It is fair to say that Martial was better than a 20 year old Greizmann who was still two years away from playing for a less talented French team at 20.

That said the thread is stupid. I would carry Martial all the way to Barcelona myself if we were getting Messi in return.
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Coman is half a year younger than Martial and he is already a starter for France. Is he better than Martial?
 
nick2004 said:
The sad truth is that Griezmann is much better than Martial.

And of course, many other players are much better than Martial, let's not kid ourselves.

Martial is still a nobody, no comparison with Messi, shouldn't even be in the same sentence.
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Don't you think Martial is the next Messi, though?
lol. I'm sorry. That thread never dies.
 
The people who said no, should be shamed like Cersi Lannister in Game of Throne. Unless, they have a crystal ball or just like the romanticization of player development over common sense.

To be fair, I understand to some point if they said no to most other top class players like Ibrahimovic, Bale, Greizman, etc., but Messi is Messi; perhaps the best player to play football. We can find many more Martial, but there is only one Messi.
 
wonder the kinda response this would have got it it was to swap martial for current Ronaldo
 
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