Anthony Martial And Marcus Rashford Give Manchester United An X Factor!

Super sup Anthony Martial climbed off the bench to grab Manchester United’s winner in theirĀ 1-0 victory over title rivals Tottenham Hotspur in Saturday’s Premier League encounter at Old Trafford.

United boss Jose Mourinho currently starts with either Martial or fellow young hotshot Marcus Rashford and then after around seventy minutes or so, Jose will fling on the one that he’s left on the bench.

It has created a bit of competition between the youngsters and they’ve both provided the team with plenty of goals and assists.

French forward Martial, who has found himself on the bench more, has netted six goals and made four assists. He has only started seven times and has came on as a sub seven times too. Four of Anthony’s goals have come in the last fifteen minutes of matches.

While Rashford has started ten fixtures in all competitions so far this season and he has came on as a substitute a further five times. In his appearances, Marcus has banged in seven strikes and created three assists. He has found the net three times as a substitute.

The benefit of starting one and then having the other coming on to finish the game is that both players possess frightening pace and a keen eye for goal.

Both talents also have the hunger to perform in the biggest of games.

The job of the starting player is to work hard and run their socks off. They also have to work back and help the team defensively. That tireless work-rate will tire their opponents out and then Mourinho will fling on the sub, who will be desperate to show their skill-set and get into Jose’s future starting eleven.

It’s a tactic that has worked wonders for Man United so far this term.

Mourinho’s men have scored twenty-three times in the league and a whopping ten of those strikes have came in the last ten minutes of games, that works out on average as late goal in every league tie this season. No team has a better record of late strikes in the Premier League.

It’s probably down to work-rate that has seen nineteen year old Rashford get the nod more often than Martial at the moment. The Englishman works hard and gives you a disciplined performance, which means working back as well as going for goals. It’s that disciplined side of his game that Jose loves to see from his forward players.

Martial is more about going on the front foot and constantly attacking, he’s also intelligent at seeing gaps and making the most of defence mistakes. That’s exactly how he got his goal at Old Trafford against Spurs. You find mistakes happening and finding more space as the game nears it’s end, hence why the French international gets a call from the bench with twenty minutes or so left on the clock. It’s worth noting that Martial seems to have a better understanding with main striker Romelu Lukaku.

People are desperate to see both youngsters start and play alongside Lukaku. They see it as the ideal front three.

When asked by the media if he could start both young forwards, Jose stated:

“So yes they can play together, so that’s no problem, what we cannot do is play with 12 and we cannot play with everybody at the same time, but we did.”

The Portuguese boss has done it in the League Cup and the Red Devils are flying high in the Champions League, so yes I think he could do it in that competition too.

I’m not sure he’ll rush into doing it in the Premier League though. In the five occasions they’ve started together in the league, United have failed to pick up a win. They don’t seem to give the line-up the needed balance or structure.

Plus let’s be honest, why would he want to mess around with a tactic that clearly works for his team?

There seems to be a bit of competition between the two and at the moment the club are the winners as both Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford are scoring and creating for others too!

Jose Mourinho just needs to man-manage these prodigies and keep them both happy when they aren’t starting.

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