Sam Allardyce has slammed Anthony Martial on BeIN Sports and insisted he’s “not good enough for Manchester United”.
Speaking in the aftermath of United’s 3-2 Premier League defeat to Brighton on Sunday, the former England manager singled out the France international as being well below the level required for the Premier League giants.
“You look at Van Gaal who brought in Martial, it doesn’t matter who the manager is, Martial’s not good enough for Manchester United,” Allardyce told BeIN Sports, as quoted by the Middle East broadcaster’s Twitter account.
“If you want to be super critical, he’s not the player they thought they were getting. You’ve got a big young talent for £50million and he’s not progressed since his first season. He should be as good as [Leroy] Sane and [Raheem] Sterling.”
"Martial's not good enough for @ManUtd."#beINPL #MUFC pic.twitter.com/gb9HlSOPez
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) August 19, 2018
OPINION
It is a bit unfair to single out Martial following United’s defeat to Brighton. Sure, the Frenchman was pretty mediocre, but so were most of his teammates. Is the 22-year-old forward, capped 18 times by the World Cup winners, the problem? Or the way Jose Mourinho sets up his attack, which has been less than the sum of its parts for most of his two-and-a-bit-year reign? Martial’s United record is actually pretty good – 36 goals and 26 assists from 137 matches. For a player who is predominantly used on the left flank and not as the principal centre-forward, that is actually pretty good. Little wonder Spurs tried to sign the £110,000-a-week ace (source: Spotrac) in the summer as part-exchange for Toby Alderweireld. It is something of a surprise that Martial is still at Old Trafford after being so publicly criticised by Mourinho, but, then, so is Luke Shaw and he was once again in the starting XI after appearing to bury the hatchet with the combustible manager. Martial deserves better than Mourinho, not the other way round.