I take a look at Anthony Martial half a season after his record transfer
Anthony Martial is currently Manchester United’s upcoming star. The 20 year old made a huge (potentially) £58 million move to Manchester United in the summer from AS Monaco. His move was widely and heavily publicized because of the large fee involved. Half a season after, lets take a look at how he’s doing.
“I watched Anthony Martial for 90 minutes in the Champions League and the only 19-year-old I’ve seen better at that age was Lionel Messi. I played against Wayne Rooney when he made his debut but this boy has so much intelligence. He knows when to pass, when to cross it, when to dribble and when to shoot. He goes past people like they’re not there. Everything he does, there is a reason behind it. It’s like he’s been here before – certain players have this, you can’t put your finger on what it is, but it’s just a quality. I love watching him play. He’s going to be a superstar.” – Jamie Redknapp
Anthony Martial is the most expensive teenager in football history. His entrance to Manchester United coincided with Louis van Gaal’s second season in charge of the English club. He joined along with Memphis Depay, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin who all joined in the summer period between the 2014/15 and 2015/16 season.
Manchester United’s previous season had been merely average. They had successfully brought Champions League football back to Old Trafford and had reached 4th. However, experienced strikers Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao quickly fell out of form after a fruitful start to the season. Wayne Rooney couldn’t achieve much more which added to the teams problems. Angel Di Maria struggled too. He also had a good start to the season but quickly fell to nothing. The season before he had been selected as MOTM in the UEFA Champions League final. Was it really a good decision for Anthony Martial to join a club which had been taking players who were in the form of their lives and creating players who struggled to score?
You could say that this event was the players fault. They had burnt out. However, Angel Di Maria has reignited in the Ligue 1 with PSG and van Persie has scored 6 goals in 16 appearances in a (so far) decent season with Fenerbahce.
In the same transfer period, Louis van Gaal let Javier Hernandez leave to Bayer Leverkusen after a year on loan at Real Madrid (in which Hernandez wasn’t given a good chance to prove himself.) He has now won the Bundesliga player of the month award for 2 months in a row after scoring consistently in his previous performances.
So when Anthony Martial joined, there were some suggestions to what would happen during his spell with the club. There was a lot of speculation. Now nearly 5 months have passed, with Martial making 21 appearances for the club.
Is Manchester United underperforming or is Anthony Martial misfiring?
Sometimes when a club is underperforming, players who play for the club struggle. A good example would be Falcao at Chelsea. But within the same example, some players really step up when a club is underperforming. You could suggest Willian at Chelsea this season. He has easily been one of the positives in their season.
Anthony Martial could be viewed as either. His stats suggest the former but his situation suggests the latter. In Manchester United’s game against Chelsea at Old Trafford (0-0), Martial was the sharpest instrument in Manchester United’s attack. He caused Ivanovic constant problems down the left side of the pitch. His low driven shot which had Courtois beaten at his near post bounced off the inside of the post and bounced clear. An unlucky moment in a match where Manchester United were playing completely differently.
The stats vs the situation
Anthony Martial’s stats are nothing special. Squawka lists him as the 7th best performing Manchester United player. For me, this isn’t surprising either. He’s only just come into the most competitive league and joined the team under the most amount of pressure (apart from maybe Chelsea).
Before I begin to dissect the stats, I want to talk about his situation. Louis van Gaal doesn’t change his system for individuals. It doesn’t matter if you are a household name, or a player who recently played for the youth teams. You play how he says. This mentality has caused him to fall out and/or cause strikers to fall out of form because the system doesn’t supply them with the opportunities that they want.
This doesn’t change for Anthony Martial. He may be young and have lots of potential but that doesn’t matter. He will play where and how van Gaal tells him to play. The same “philosophy” that crushed players like Di Maria, Falcao and van Persie during their time under him will be pushed onto Martial. And Martial is thriving. Although he is being played at LAM/LM/LW at times, he is still succeeding.
Lets dissect some of the stats.
In the 15 appearances that Martial has played in the Barclays Premier League, he has scored 5 goals. While this isn’t quite Jamie Vardy levels, it’s still a good number for a foreign player who is being played in a different position.
I want to look into his shooting in detail too.
The first interesting statistic I want to show you is in figure 1. Martial really likes his low driven shots across goal from the left hand side of the pitch. The majority of his goals have come from the left hand side of the goal. This is backed up by figure 2 where it really shows Martial’s goals. His instinct when shooting is to shoot across the keeper and into the back of the net. This must be aided by the fact that he is a right footed player, playing mainly on the left hand side of the pitch (figure 3). He has scored one goal from a header (the shot at the centre of the goal) and one from his weaker foot but this isn’t really substantial.
When you play in the midfield, there are times in which you will be expected to put a shift in to help the defence. Some players chose to neglect this duty.
Anthony Martial is not one of those midfielders. The stats show that he is used to pressure opposition players as well as blocking shots. I expect that the clearances he makes are from corners or periods of soaking pressure from the opposition.
Figure 5 also shows some interesting facts. He wins roughly 1/3 of all headed duels. I expect this to rise as he gets older and becomes physically stronger. I don’t expect Mario Mandzukic levels of aerial dominance, but maybe a bit more.
As he has played in the attacking midfield in a 4231, I would have expected him to create some chances. According to Squawka, he has created 16 in the current season.
This picture doesn’t do Martial’s style of play justice. The 50% of assists from inside the box could be described differently. Martial will run to the byline, run parallel to the goal and then cross it in, which is how he creates his chances. The alternative to this is when he would cut inside in the same position but shoot (and score).
The future
Anthony Martial has already shown his development in the 5 months that he has been with Manchester United. There will always be a lot of pressure on him as a player because of his £58 million price tag. However, Martial has shown his ability and maturity which should overcome any issues he will face. His development is still to0 little to talk about his long term future. However, if things keep going as they are, Anthony Martial will be a key player for Manchester United and should Louis van Gaal trust him to be the solution to the striker/goals problem at Manchester United, I think he will more than likely be a good fix. However, there will still be the chance that he could be ruined by injuries and become the next Abou Diaby or David Bellion.
gegenpressed 