Man Utd flop rejects move, Ten Hag stopped from making January signings

Carlo Garganese

• 14 Jan 2024 11:50 GMT
• 3 min read

Anthony Martial is preventing Manchester United from signing an attacker in January, Fabrizio Romano has revealed.

Martial’s contract at Man Utd expires at the end of the season and Romano says there is no chance that his contract will be renewed.

United would be open to selling him in January but Romano says that Martial is refusing currently to leave.

As a result, United are unable to buy an attacker this month as they need to offload Martial first.

What did Romano say?

“Man United are looking at opportunities but nothing is imminent also in this case,” Romano said.

“Man United had multiple conversations with the agents of strikers around Europe, but still nothing concrete.

“Also because Anthony Martial is still not convinced by the options he received so far and so he could end up staying at Old Trafford until June.”

United are enduring a disastrous season, and one of the key reasons for this is because the attackers have underperformed.

Ideally, United would like to bring in a top forward in January but the space and resources are not there without Martial being sold.

Martial joined Manchester United in 2015 as the world’s most expensive teenager but despite some bright spells has never truly fulfilled his potential.

His last few years in particular have been a disaster at Old Trafford.

He has scored just 12 Premier League goals in the last three and a half seasons, while he has only two goals in all competitions in 2023-24 campaign.

In total he has scored 90 goals in 317 games for the club. This is his ninth season at Man Utd. He only turned 28 in December.

Martial has won four trophies at United, all of them considered rather minor titles. These are the 2016 FA Cup, 2017 League Cup, 2016 Community Shield and 2017 Europa League.