Martial and Benteke: One demoted, one displaced as Liverpool and Man United struggle for goals

As Liverpool host Manchester United in one of the biggest games of the Premier League season, Richard Jolly examines the roles of the two strikers recruited by each club in the summer.

Christian Benteke, left, is Liverpool's second-most expensive signing, while Anthony Martial is Manchester United's most expensive ever striker. Clint Hughes / AP Photo / Simon Bellis / Sportimage

Richard Jolly

In their own way, they were striking sensations. Their clubs had committed a combined £90 million (Dh471.1m) to recruiting them.

This was an early illustration why. Glorious goals were utterly different. Christian Benteke’s scissor kick showcased force, imagination and athleticism. Anthony Martial’s solo run featured sleekness, speed and skill.

It was his Manchester United debut, Benteke’s fifth game for Liverpool, a September 3-1 win for Louis van Gaal’s team where both newcomers provided a memorable moment.

Yet as these clubs reconvene on Sunday, it is with the probability that neither will start as a striker. Martial is likely to be stationed on one flank. Benteke will almost certainly begin on the bench.

Each is the second most expensive player in his club’s history. Benteke cost Liverpool £32.5m. United paid a fee rising to £58.8m for Martial.

Yet Liverpool have never scored fewer goals at this stage of a league season. United have only managed 18 in their last 18 matches.

The anomaly is that each drew 3-3 this week. Such potency has been absent for much of the campaign.

Martial and Benteke are their respective sides’ leading league scorers. One has been demoted, one displaced.

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Roberto Firmino and Wayne Rooney scored twice apiece in midweek, each with a stunning second against Arsenal and Newcastle United respectively.

The fact that such faith was invested in them was telling. The Brazilian only had one goal in 24 earlier outings for Liverpool, but is deemed a better fit for Jurgen Klopp’s preferred style of play than Benteke.

The Englishman reached the halfway stage of the league season with a mere two league goals but van Gaal’s belief in his captain has been a constant. Rooney was dropped once, at Stoke City, but was swiftly restored to the side.

Benteke has found himself among the replacements time and again: Klopp prefers to begin defining games with the high-energy Firmino as an ersatz attacker.

Yet while, despite the drama this week, these teams have had too few scorers and too few strikers, they are different examples of forward thinking.

In United’s case, that has been by design. In Liverpool’s, it has been by accident.

Van Gaal, in a surprising comment, said he did not want competition for places in attack as it would put his forwards under pressure.

It was one way of explaining the sales of Javier Hernandez and Robin van Persie plus the decisions to loan out James Wilson and Adnan Januzaj, who has since returned from a fruitless spell at Borussia Dortmund.

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He has deployed others out of position, but has had just two specialist strikers, with the added complication that Rooney appeared virtually undroppable — on status, not performance, until his recent revival — and that Martial can also seem United’s most dangerous winger.

Van Gaal’s preference for fewer personnel is one of many ways where he represents a break from United’s past.

Alex Ferguson long preferred to operate with a contingent of four strikers. After replenishing their attack in the summer, Liverpool had a quartet of their own.

Yet now Daniel Sturridge, Danny Ings and Divock Origi are injured, as the two Englishmen have been for much of the season, and only Benteke is fit. He is on the outside, looking in.

Brendan Rodgers trialled his innovative, striker-less system against United last season, using Raheem Sterling as a false nine in a 3-4-2-1 shape.

Klopp has aped his predecessor in one respect, but for different reasons. The theory is that gegenpressing and Benteke do not mix.

The problem for Martial, whose first two league games yielded three goals but whose last 14 have produced just two, and Rooney is that United fashion too few chances.

Even when they scored three times in much more vibrant attacking performance at St James’ Park, they only recorded four shots on target.

Perhaps it was telling that even when Benteke and Martial scored wonder goals at Old Trafford, they conjured them out of nothing.

Now the onus lies with Firmino and Rooney to do likewise as English football’s two historic superpowers seek to show they still have the firepower to blaze to glory.

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