Ferdinand: Martial went from 'ultra special' to 'not good enough' at Man Utd
Martin Macdonald
- 26 Jan 2022 07:38 CST
- 3 min read
Rio Ferdinand has expressed regret at Anthony Martial's failure to establish himself as a star at Manchester United.
In September of 2015, Martial signed for the Red Devils from Monaco in a deal that could have been worth upwards of £58 million.
The Frenchman has struggled for consistency in his period at Old Trafford, and has been particularly disappointing over the last 18 months.
Since the start of the 2020/21 campaign, he has scored just five Premier League goals, a major reduction on his outlay in 2019/20 as he scored 17 goals and recorded six assists in 31 starts.
This week, after falling out of favour at Man Utd, he left for Sevilla on a six-month loan.
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Ferdinand believes consistency was an issue for Martial as he went from being excellent to disappointing frequently.
“I think Anthony Martial needs this,” Ferdinand said on his YouTube channel FIVE about the player's Sevilla move.
“He needs to play first-team football, he needs to be a regular, he needs to start playing on a regular basis now on a consistent level.
“For the last year or so, even longer maybe, he hasn’t been a regular and he’s needed this move.
“He showed glimpses throughout his career at Man United where you think; ‘Wow, this kid could be ultra-special’.
“But then there’s been times where he’s been underwhelming and you thought; ‘This isn’t good enough’.
“Hopefully he improves [on loan] and it frees up a bit of space for Man United to go and get someone else.”
Why did Martial fail at Man Utd?
Ferdinand went on to discuss why Martial ultimately failed, and thinks his movement off the ball was a major issue.
“I just feel with Martial he didn’t move enough off the ball, he didn’t make runs in behind, but he’s quick,” Ferdinand explained.
“Sometimes you’ve got to vary the way you attack opponents and you can’t always want the ball to feet. He probably didn’t hurt defenders in behind as much as he could have.
“When you look at a [Sadio] Mane, [Marcus] Rashford sometimes, [Raheem] Sterling, they don’t all just come to feet as for a defender it then gets easy to read.
“You have to vary the point of attack. I don’t think that he did that enough.
“You see things levelled at him that he didn’t smile and was moody but you just look at more the way he played his football – his inconsistencies.
“When you’re going to be a winning team you can’t have people who are inconsistent in the team.”
