Welcome to the summer silly season! It’s time to take a spin through the latest churnings in the Manchester United transfer rumor mill. There has been speculation, for some time that Frenchman forward Anthony Martial could be headed out the Old Trafford exit door.
According to English transfer guru Duncan Castles, Martial is going out on the trading block due to manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer having grown weary of his demeanor and approach.
Castles said on the Transfer Window podcast (h/t Sun): “Anthony Martial is to be sacrificed should they get this new forward in.
“Solskjaer is tired of his attitude and hasn’t been impressed with his goal production and general knitting into the team this season.”
Castles added that he believes Martial has been offered to Real Madrid on a season long loan with an option to buy. Martial has been linked to Madrid this summer in plenty of other publications too. If the “OGS is sick of Martial’s attitude” narrative is true, well he’s not the only United manager to have had a problem with the player.
You’ll recall that Martial and Jose Mourinho had their differences, and that their grievances were well out in the open. Martial arrived on summer transfer window deadline day 2015, from Monaco, and over the years we have seen his name often linked with a move away.
We’ve seen names like Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur pop up. Obviously nothing really ever came close to materializing, but now feels very different.
With Edinson Cavani re-signing for another year, and United in the market to add another forward this summer, perhaps his time with MUFC is set to run out soon. The Bernabeu is an interesting destination for him, and it will be interesting to see what other plot turns this transfer narrative contains.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.