‘I really like to play down the left, through the middle… but to tell you the truth, as long as I’m playing football, I’ll fit in anywhere,’ Sanchez said.

So the left was his first answer, though the man currently occupying that space has made a case for why he should not be ousted by Jose Mourinho.

It’s been a clinical January for Anthony Martial, who only turned 22 last month.

For the first time since joining United, he has scored in three successive Premier League games – against Everton, Stoke then the winner at Burnley. Each one of those was a screamer too.

Last season, Martial might only show his quality once in a while. Now, he is going for the award of Most Improved at Old Trafford with nine goals and four assists in 22 games. Considering he has started only 13 of those 22, the Frenchman has taken his chances.

He is the third-top player in the Premier League for minutes-per-goal involvement. After Sergio Aguero on 72.3 minutes and Mohamed Salah on 73.9, Martial is sitting pretty on 83.5.

There is still plenty of room for improvement, such as in the pressing and passing departments, yet the youngster has shown a great deal of determination in recent weeks.

Scoring in three straight league games while every man and his dog debates whether the new man in Manchester will steal your spot shows some steely focus.

Martial has knuckled down and gotten on with business while his club brought in a player who knows his position well.


Following the signing of Sanchez, Mourinho was asked where he would use him. The Portuguese said he can play on the left, on the right and in the middle, both as a striker or behind a frontman. He kept us guessing, in other words.

The left wing was where Sanchez spent a lot of time over the last four years for Arsenal and it is a position he clearly prefers.

It allows him to cut inside on his favourite foot – he has scored 47 with his right and five with his left in the Premier League – and to get involved in the build-up of goals.

Sanchez knows how to do a job in the centre and spent time on the right in Barcelona, and Mourinho must consider how to use him but not upset the balance. United have not signed a 29-year-old on lavish £600,000-a-week wages to sit on the substitutes’ bench, after all.

Their new No 7 started at Yeovil in the FA Cup on Friday and was used on the left while Martial was rested ahead of Tottenham away on Wednesday. Mourinho’s first Premier League XI at Wembley will be intriguing, to say the least.

All this will leave Marcus Rashford and Juan Mata wondering whether it is their spots that are more in jeopardy than Martial’s. And from what we’ve seen this season, rightly so.

Martial has had to fight to become one of the first on Mourinho's team sheet. Only Kevin De Bruyne and Philippe Coutinho (4) have scored more from outside of the box than him (3) and he has already more than doubled his league goals tally from last season.

The youngster who was signed for £36million rising to £58m in 2015 has delivered in what must have been a testing month for him amid all this talk of Sanchez's arrival.

Stopping Martial now could only kill his confidence and that is a risk United should be wary of running.

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