{"id":12056,"date":"2023-04-16T06:55:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T06:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-difficult-to-rely-on\/"},"modified":"2023-04-16T06:58:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T06:58:47","slug":"soccer-difficult-to-rely-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-difficult-to-rely-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Difficult to rely on Martial due to injury record, says Ten Hag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211;     Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag said forward Anthony Martial&#8217;s injury issues make it difficult to rely on him but backed the Frenchman to be part of his plans next season.<\/p>\n<p>Martial made his first start since mid-January in Thursday&#8217;s 2-2 draw with Sevilla in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-final, where he was taken off after the one-hour mark.<\/p>\n<p>Fitness issues have held back the 27-year-old, who has made 18 appearances this season but only 10 of those have been starts. <\/p>\n<p>Asked if he can trust Martial to be part of the squad in the long term, Ten Hag told reporters: &#8220;It&#8217;s difficult to say because the history shows different but I want him to be because he&#8217;s a great player. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He definitely has the qualities to play top football. When he&#8217;s fit, our team plays better.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The Dutch manager described Martial as a versatile player but said he is at his best when leading the front line.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he can play across the front. For me, he&#8217;s best at centre forward, but he can play in the wide position as well,&#8221; Ten Hag said.<\/p>\n<p>With Marcus Rashford out with a groin injury, Martial is in line to start in Sunday&#8217;s Premier League game away to Nottingham Forest. <\/p>\n<p>United are fourth in the league with 56 points, 17 points behind leaders Arsenal, who have played a game more. <\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-difficult-to-rely-on\/premier-league-manchester-united-v-brentford-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3F01P-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3F01P-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211; Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag said forward Anthony Martial&#8217;s injury issues make it difficult to rely on him but backed the Frenchman to be part of his plans next season. Martial made his first start since mid-January in Thursday&#8217;s 2-2 draw with Sevilla in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-final, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3F01P-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12058,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056\/revisions\/12058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}