OLE Gunnar Solskjaer said it wasn’t the time to talk about individual performances.
Well, unless you were talking about, say, the impact Mason Greenwood had when he came onto the pitch during Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup defeat to West Ham.
If Anthony Martial was the subject then he was less keen and for good reason.
One shot on target in 90 minutes in another lacklustre display from the Frenchman.
Solskjaer said: “I don’t think it’s right to go into individual performances,
“Anthony was the same as the rest of the team, we played some nice football, we lacked some of that cutting edge and he knows what we want from him. He’ll keep working and get his chances.”
He has now scored in one out of his last 24 appearances for Manchester United.
That was his brace in the 9-0 win over Southampton last February when, to be fair, we could of all had a go late on and probably notched one up.
One irate caller into talkSPORT after the West Ham game likened him to a mannequin and BBC pundit and former professional Dion Dublin was equally non-plussed with what he witnessed from the Old Trafford press box.
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Dublin said: “His body language is horrible to watch, he doesn’t want to run around and work hard to be Manchester United’s No 9.”
Indeed Martial produces heat maps that would leave an Eskimo cold in the Algarve.
Based on the past year or so I have rarely seen a Manchester United player look less interested in playing football.
He wants the ball to come to him rather than move to find it.
Solskjaer has been more than fair with him giving him time to get up to speed after a knee injury suffered towards the end of last season.
But the problems had set in long before.
The Man United boss is not a man to shy away from tough choices as he proved in his handling of Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez.
Now he needs to see what he can get for Martial in the New Year for both the player and the club’s good.
At 25 he should be at his peak, but he has not so much plateaued but tumbled down the mountain.
United fans saw in the very first game of the season a classic number nine’s display from a Manchester United player.
It came from 19-year-old Greenwood who lead the line, dropped deep to link up play, made runs, pulled defenders this way and that.
Now of course at least they have Cristiano Ronaldo who continues to give lessons in the art of goalscoring with four in his first three games for United.
GREENWOOD IS PLAYING HOW MARTIAL SHOULD BE
He was not involved on Tuesday night as Solskjaer changed his whole starting line-up while Greenwood’s impact was delayed until just past the hour.
How Martial managed to stay on the pitch when the excellent Jesse Lingard found himself hooked after 72 minutes was a mystery.
Solskjaer tried to play down the relevance of the Carabao Cup after the game insisting that it has always been a competition used by United to give players much needed game time.
Ok if the trophy cabinet is stacked I guess but United have not won one in four years.
Still, it’s far from doom and gloom as the league table will show with four wins and a draw from United’s first five.
It’s Aston Villa at home Saturday and Ronaldo will be back and so undoubtedly will be the goals.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
