{"id":576989,"date":"2021-01-03T04:12:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T09:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=576989"},"modified":"2021-01-03T04:12:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T09:12:58","slug":"anthony-martial-back-on-good-form-for-manchester-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/03\/anthony-martial-back-on-good-form-for-manchester-united\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Martial Back on Good Form for Manchester United"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/8b788c01\/Anthony-Martial?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Martial<\/a> has finally refound his good form for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/manchester-united\/\" target=\"_self\">Manchester United<\/a>\u00a0after a difficult start to the 2020\/21 campaign. The Frenchman struggled at the start of this season, not scoring until the Red Devils&#8217; twelfth match of the season. Now, though, it seems that he is back on top form, impacting his side positively in many areas, as well as producing some impressive stats.<\/p>\n<h2>Anthony Martial Refinding Good Form for Manchester United<\/h2>\n<h3>Tough Start to the Season<\/h3>\n<p>Martial struggled immensely at the beginning of this season. The Frenchman failed to score in United&#8217;s first two matches of the season, and less than half an hour into their third, a 6-1 battering at the hands of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/tottenham\/\" target=\"_self\">Tottenham Hotspur<\/a>, he received a red card.<\/p>\n<p>After his return from suspension, Martial was still unable to get himself on the scoresheet, and his performances raised questions about whether he should be the Red Devils&#8217; starting striker, especially with <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/527f063d\/Edinson-Cavani?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Edinson Cavani<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/58eee997\/Mason-Greenwood?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mason Greenwood<\/a> also in the squad.<\/p>\n<h3>Martial Bad Form Coinciding With That of United<\/h3>\n<p>The Red Devils had a tough start to the season too.<\/p>\n<p>They lost two of their first three games and went on to win just one of their next three. After a 1-0 loss to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/arsenal\/\" target=\"_self\">Arsenal<\/a> in mid-November, the last of the three matches in Martial&#8217;s suspension, the Red Devils started to put together a good run of form in terms of results.<\/p>\n<p>However, their performances didn&#8217;t start to look so convincing until a dominating 3-2 victory against relegation battling <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/sheffield-united\/\" target=\"_self\">Sheffield United<\/a>. Before this, while there may have been consistent results, there were not consistent performances, with games against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/west-ham\/\" target=\"_self\">West Ham United<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/southampton\/\" target=\"_self\">Southampton<\/a> both needing miraculous second-half comebacks for the Reds to take home all three points.<\/p>\n<h3>Anthony Martial Back on Good Form<\/h3>\n<p>United&#8217;s victory at Bramall Lane, in which they were much the better team, saw Martial bag his first <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/\" target=\"_self\">Premier League<\/a> goal of the season. He also assisted <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/a1d5bd30\/Marcus-Rashford?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Rashford<\/a> in scoring the winner.<\/p>\n<p>Following this, Martial got two further assists in the Manchester side&#8217;s 6-2 thrashing of rivals <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/leeds-united\/\" target=\"_self\">Leeds United<\/a>, as well as winning a penalty.<\/p>\n<p>After their Carabou Cup quarter-final win over <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/everton\/\" target=\"_self\">Everton<\/a>, the 25-year-old had six direct goal involvements in his last three matches, as his substitute appearance inspired the Reds to a late victory at Goodison Park.<\/p>\n<p>Due to Edinson Cavani now being <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/12\/31\/edinson-cavani-handed-three-match-suspension\/\" target=\"_self\">suspended due to an Instagram post<\/a>\u00a0he made earlier in the season, the responsibility up top falls more heavily on Martial&#8217;s shoulders. Against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/aston-villa\/\" target=\"_self\">Aston Villa<\/a>, the first of the Uruguayan striker&#8217;s three-match ban, Martial showed that he can be relied upon by scoring the opener. This was a massive breakthrough as the Villains&#8217; defence was very well organised, and the goal ended up helping United to a 2-1 victory, taking them level on points with leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/liverpool\/\" target=\"_self\">Liverpool<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If the former Monaco attacker can maintain this form, he could match or even exceed the heights he reached last season, which included United&#8217;s first league hat-trick since <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/3fcab3a8\/Robin-van-Persie?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robin van Persie<\/a>&#8216;s 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"us9EXwSxTax_53yAKkBoTg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1294045420\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'us9EXwSxTax_53yAKkBoTg',sig:'fybTPxbLDUVxf-5SKkzYm_Ost0DvRxW7pZ8nxGXC7O0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1294045420',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Martial has finally refound his good form for Manchester United\u00a0after a difficult start to the 2020\/21 campaign. The Frenchman struggled at the start of this season, not scoring until the Red Devils&#8217; twelfth match of the season. Now, though, it seems that he is back on top form, impacting his side positively in many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3312,"featured_media":577044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,3],"tags":[432,7379,36,40,136],"class_list":["post-576989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-anthony-martial","tag-anthony-martial-good-form","tag-manchester-united","tag-premier-league","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Joseph Howes, Site Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3312"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}