Manchester United fans bloody love Anthony Martial.
You can’t blame them, either. In his first season at Old Trafford – a season in which the majority of his United teammates seemed more concerned with passing the ball sideways in their own half for 90 minutes – the Frenchman was one of few players at the club who appeared to be interested in trying to score goals.
With Louis van Gaal shown the door at the end of that season, many expected Martial to flourish as José Mourinho reintroduced (something resembling) attacking football to United.
As of yet, that’s not quite happened.
Having lost his place as United’s central striker (and squad number) to Zlatan Ibrahimović, Martial’s appearances this season have come largely on United’s left wing. He’s chipped in with the odd goal here and there, but he’s not done enough to convince his new manager that he’s worthy of a regular starting berth.
As a result, he’s recently had to play second fiddle to Marcus Rashford, all the excuse needed for the transfer gossip columns to speculate that he could be edging towards the Old Trafford exit door. Having failed to make it off the bench in recent league games against Hull and Leicester, some have gone as far as suggesting that his relationship with Mourinho has broken down.
On Monday however, Martial moved to reassure United fans.
A tweet from the former Monaco man urged the club’s supporters not to ‘listen [to] the papers’.
Dont listen the papers it's wrong thanks Come on United 🔴
— Anthony Martial (@AnthonyMartial) February 6, 2017
Only a few weeks ago, similar paper talk did the rounds about Henrikh Mkhitaryan following his relatively slow start to life in Manchester. Since then it’s emerged that Mourinho deliberately kept the Armenian out of his starting eleven and put him on a special programme geared at helping him adjust to the physical demands of the Premier League.
Since being restored, the former Borussia Dortmund player has been a key player in the United team, performing particularly well in the number ten role at Leicester on Sunday.
Catch up with this week’s episode of 888sport Football Friday Live
