What does Anthony Martial need to do to resurrect his Manchester United career?

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Anthony Martial hasn’t pushed on this season in the manner that he would have expected after a good first campaign in the Premier League. He has been left out of match day squads at times and it is clear that Jose Mourinho isn’t totally convinced by the French forward. To date, he has only played 888 minutes in the Premier League, with his average appearance lasting 55.5 minutes. Although he is having problems getting into the Manchester United team, the 21-year-old insists that he is happy at the club and stated his desire to remain at Old Trafford, due to the passion of the supporters. Sky Sports report the following quotes from the French international.

“For me, what’s really special here is the supporters. They’ve been really outstanding with me.

“I think that’s what goes a long way to making me feel at home and at ease, and makes me really keen to stay here at the club.”

This will be reassuring to Manchester United supporters as there had been fears that he could be the next high-profile attacker to leave the club. Angel di Maria, Javier Hernandez and Memphis Depay have all left in recent windows to star elsewhere, which has created doubts about United’s ability to get the best out of the players that they own.

It hasn’t been the best season for Martial on the pitch as he hasn’t been able to become a regular in the team. He has only scored three goals compared to his haul of eleven last season. However, it can be argued that his final ball has become better during this campaign, as his goal involvement per minute is currently 126.9 minutes, compared to 175.5 minutes last season. He has equalled his total number of assists of four already, despite playing in less than a third of the minutes that he completed during the 2015/16 season.

In fact, he is averaging 1.42 chances created and 2.53 shots every ninety minutes, which is more than the 1.27 chances created and 1.95 shots that he averaged last season. The stats show that he is more influential when he is on the pitch and that has partly been caused by United’s more positive style of play. They were laboured at times under Van Gaal and that may have made it easier for Martial to stand out as he had the dynamism that few others in the squad possessed. Under Mourinho, they are creating more chances and the main disappointment regarding the Frenchman has been his finishing. His chance conversion rate has fallen from 19.3% to 12% during the current campaign and that is something that he will need to improve if he is to break into the first eleven.

The next few weeks are going to be crucial for Martial’s Manchester United campaign. He needs to prove to Mourinho that he can be more clinical in front of goal and that he can perform to a Champions League standard on a more consistent basis. There is no doubting his talent, but he has yet to convince the world that he possesses the mental strength to become the player that we know he can be. The left wing position is the position that he needs to target, as nobody has made it their own at Old Trafford this season. Kylian Mbappe is making headlines for Monaco, but Martial was once the golden boy of the Stade Louis II. He needs to remind the world why he is considered one of the most exciting talents in football with a good run of performances for Manchester United.

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