Anthony Martial should be ecstatic about his looming transfer
By Zack Nelson
Now that the Premier League season is over, Manchester United face a huge decision regarding the future of Anthony Martial.
In a not-so-surprising move, Jose Mourinho benched Anthony Martial for United’s final game of the season against Watford, after saying just a few days before that the young Frenchman would be in the starting lineup. Mourinho cited an “injury” as the cause for Martial’s benching, but that only added more fuel to the fire of Martial’s exit rumors.
If you had to describe Martial’s 3 years at United, one word that probably comes to mind is “inconsistent”. Inconsistent playtime, inconsistent positioning, inconsistent performances, and on top of that, 2 different managers.
It’s because of this inconsistency that Martial hasn’t yet blossomed into the player everyone thought he could be back in 2014, and the prospect of a move away should definitely be seen as a good opportunity.
One thing that has been consistent throughout Martial’s United career, though, are the constant comparisons to Thierry Henry. These have been going on since before Louis van Gaal bought him from Monaco.
Now, I’m not usually one for comparing promising youngsters to star players. They rarely ever meet those expectations, and calling every young hot-shot attacker the next Messi or the next Ronaldo has gotten tiresome.
The fact that they share the same nationality, skin color, and Monaco roots may contribute more to the comparison than they should, but when you watch Martial you can definitely see similarities between the two.
However, when we compare the two players in, say, 10 years, a huge talking point could be their career paths. Henry was a winger in his first few professional years at both Monaco and Juventus, and was relatively disappointing. However, when he went to Arsenal, Wenger molded him into a striker, and, well, the rest is history.
I think we’ll see a similar career path for Martial. In his current situation, he’s being bogged down by Mourinho’s negative style of play, as well as the fact that Romelu Lukaku both fits his system well, and is objectively better than Martial right now. As a result, he’s either benched or pushed out onto the wing, where his performances can be erratic.
Some days we see flashes of a future world-class player, and others, he’s completely invisible. But when you’re an attacker by nature and you are expected to track back and defend, and are often receiving the ball near your own defensive third, it’s nearly impossible to continue your development as an attacker.
According to Transfermarkt, Martial played 31 matches as a winger this season in all competitions, tallying 6 goals and 6 assists, meaning he was directly involved in a goal once every 2.5 games.
However, when Martial played through the middle as a center-forward, he was considerably better. In 9 games as a striker, he scored 5 goals and contributed 3 assists, which is about a goal/assist per game. Obviously it’s a small sample size (and we don’t have information for the amount of minutes played in those games), but that rate, if Martial had played through the middle for the whole season, he would’ve ended with about 30 combined goals and assists. Oh, and he’s only 22 years old.
It’s highly unlikely we see United sell him to another Premier League club, but there are tons of quality clubs in the other top 4 leagues in need of a striker that would be absolutely thrilled to have him.
Borussia Dortmund would certainly be interested if they can’t work out a deal for Michy Batshuayi, and Atletico would as well if Griezmann actually left. Other options include AC Milan, Schalke, RB Leipzig, Lyon, or Marseille – all quality teams where he would undoubtedly be a starting striker.
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If he goes somewhere he can play as a striker – either as a lone striker or a secondary striker in a 4-4-2 – he is going to set the world on fire and become the player everyone thought he could be. If he’s put into the right environment, Martial could become a legitimate Ballon d’Or candidate by 2022.