325 minutes without a goal.
What’s the beauty of it though? Manchester United have their best striker available to them, ready to play there.
Louis van Gaal has broken Red Devil fans’ hearts in the last few weeks. Just when it seemed like he had assembled a lovely team and got them firing, he shifts their French teenage sensation out wide and perseveres with club captain Wayne Rooney leading the line.
But the Old Trafford boss has admitted that Martial’s best position is, in fact, up front and if he is to develop to the best of his ability, he should be playing there.
“What is his best position? I think his best position is the striker’s position but he has to develop himself well,” van Gaal explained. “He is very young but I think it is better to develop him in the striker’s position than the left winger’s position.
“It is not that I have said his best position is the left winger’s position but he can play three positions, in his eyes, and that is left, and number 10 and striker. He doesn’t want to play number 7 [on the right]. I am convinced he can do that also but that is another story.”
Whilst there’s a lingering fear with the fact that van Gaal has a total of three other options – in his mind – to play Martial, he said he will do what is best for the team. And, surely, after three goalless draws, he’s at least starting to think.
“I am always thinking in the benefit of the team and not in the benefit of one player,” he said. “I have to make decisions always dependable on the game plan, the opponent and where are the weaknesses of the opponent and so on and so on.”
None of those weaknesses, obviously, are dealing with Wayne Rooney up front.
