Anthony Martial confirmed his wish to leave Manchester United in talks with Ralf Rangnick last week but the interim manager insists any deal for him to leave needs to be right for the club; Sevilla, Barcelona, Juventus are interested
Tuesday 28 December 2021 14:20, UK
Manchester United boss Ralf Rangnick says he "understands" Anthony Martial's desire to leave but any deal must also be right for the club.
The United interim manager has confirmed Martial expressed his wish to find a new challenge during talks between the pair last week but says no formal offer has yet been made by any club.
Sky Sports News exclusively revealed Martial's desire to leave Old Trafford via his representative Philippe Lamboley earlier this month. The player's preference is to join Sevilla on loan but there is also interest from Barcelona and Juventus.
In response, Rangnick had urged Martial to talk to the club and - ahead of their clash with Newcastle on Monday Night Football - the German confirmed: "We spoke at length on Wednesday.
"He explained to me he's been at Manchester United now for the last seven years and he feels it's the right time for a change, to go somewhere else.
"I think in a way this is understandable, I could follow his thoughts. But, on the other hand, it's also important to see the situation of the club; we have Covid times, we have three competitions in which we still have high ambitions and want to be as successful as we can be.
"I told him 'listen, as long as there is no club showing interest in you…' - and it should not only be in the interest of the player, it should also be in the interest of the club.
"So far, as far as I know, there has been no offer from any other club and as long as this is the case he will stay."
Martial became the world's most expensive teenager when United signed him from Monaco in September 2015 in a deal that would eventually be worth £58m. It also made him United's third most expensive signing at that time.
Martial has gone on to score 79 goals in 268 appearances but has fallen down the pecking order following the arrivals of Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani and Jadon Sancho, and the emergence of Mason Greenwood.
Ralf Rangnick's revolution at Manchester United is barely a month old yet his fingerprints can already be seen wherever you look at the club.
Two Premier League matches and a week of training may have fallen victim to a coronavirus outbreak, but not a second has been wasted in the hands of Rangnick. Areas of improvement have been pinpointed; swift and decisive decisions have followed.
One of Rangnick's first acts was to bring a sports psychologist to Old Trafford, with Sascha Lense, a close confidant during his tenure at RB Leipzig, joining United's backroom staff.
Lense's appointment threw up a number of pertinent questions, from the benefits of employing a sports psychologist, and the overall objective, to the willingness or reluctance of players to get involved.
But above all else, the burning question is why wasn't a sports psychologist - a position of unquantifiable importance to Rangnick and one he predicts will be commonplace across all sports in the near future - in situ at Manchester United in the first place?
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