Manchester United are still awaiting the results of scans on Anthony Martial, to determine the extent of a muscular injury in his left thigh. The Frenchman, who has had an up and down career at Old Trafford, has two goals and an assist thus far on the young season.
Martial is off to a great start this term, and the club retains hope that he’ll be fit to play (the team has enough to worry about with Luke Shaw) at Southampton on Saturday, the club’s final match before the international break. Under Jose Mourinho though, Martial struggled, and it was certainly no secret that the two just didn’t get along.
Things got so bad that when Martial left the club’s preseason tour last summer, in order to be there for the birth of his child, Mourinho hit out at him publicly. The Portugese, sacked by United last December and currently working as a television pundit, then tried to sell the Frenchman, but club Executive Vice President Ed Woodward refused to sanction the idea.
Now Mourinho has explained why he wanted to jettison Martial, labeling the former Monaco man as “mentally weak,” and having a tendency to sulk too much about disappointments during matches.
This according to an article in The Times today.
The 23-year-old was brought over on summer transfer window deadline day 2015, and his United career began swimmingly under then manager Louis van Gaal.
He was arguably the club’s best outfield player that season, but has since slumped in recent years under both Mourinho and current boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. At times, he found himself out of the lineup, in favor of high-salaried bust Alexis Sanchez.
Now, with Sanchez on the cusp of leaving for Inter Milan, United are waiting on an Anthony Martial fitness update before they decide to let the Chilean go. Martial is certainly well above Sanchez in the pecking order now, and they’ll need the Frenchman to be at his mental and physical best this season in order to retain any hopes of finishing in the top four.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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