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What Man Utd boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must do for Anthony Martial to copy Thierry Henry
ANTHONY MARTIAL needs to play regular first-team football for Manchester United if he’s to have any chance of emulating Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, according to former Red Devil Dimitar Berbatov.
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The France international drew comparisons with the Premier League legend during his debut season at Old Trafford, in which he showcased some deadly finishing.
Manchester United fans have only seen glimpses of his brilliance in the last few seasons, though he has managed to score 49 goals and provide 29 assists across all competitions since 2015.
Martial’s development has partially been hindered by multiple stints on the bench, which Berbatov believes must end if he’s to fulfil his potential.
During an interview with the South China Morning Post: “He can be the same as Thierry Henry, playing left and right on the wings.
“Then he moved to the central role. I see something like this with Martial. Football-wise, you need to consistently be playing regularly.
“You can play one or two games fantastically but football these days sees the coaches rotating players.
“You can have three games in a row which go perfectly. Your confidence is sky high, you can score five goals.
"You want to play but the coach says he wants to save you. And you feel like ‘for f**** sake, coach, I really want to play’.
He can be the same as Thierry Henry, playing left and right on the wings.
“You drop down a bit mentally, you don’t play and it stops your flow. And in the next game you’re not the same as in the three games before. You lose your form.
“With some players including me, it affects you and people ask, ‘Why is he not producing like he did.”
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is a big fan of Martial, so much so he’s deployed him in two positions during his brief reign at the Old Trafford helm.
The Norwegian is confident he can get the best out of the 23-year-old, saying: “Anthony's had spells when he's played number nine as a centre-forward under [Louis] van Gaal, then he's played on the left the last few years.
"I think him and Marcus [Rashford] both are capable of playing both positions.
"Sometimes it will be Marcus through the middle and Anthony on the left, or Dan James on the left and maybe one of them on the right.
"But, of course, the goals are scored from between the posts and not the worldies that we've seen them score, both of them, Marcus and Anthony with curlers in the top corner or dribble.
"I want both of them to be more scoring easy goals because you don't have to work too hard to score them, just a little bit of movement.
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"It was a great counter-attack [against Chelsea], great runs by Anthony and I think maybe he felt he should have got the first pass, it went a little bit wide out to Jesse [Lingard] and he stopped.
"But then he got himself back in a good position and even though he might have mis-hit it it went in. So if you can get five extra goals like this every season, both of them, that's 10."
Martial and his United team-mates will be back in action this evening, travelling to Molineux to take on Wolves (8pm).