Erik ten Hag leaps to defence of Wout Weghorst & Anthony Martial

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has defended strikers Wout Weghorst and Anthony Martial from recent criticisms.

Loanee Weghorst has scored just once in his six games for the Red Devils following his January arrival, and while Martial has grabbed six goals in 14 games this season, he has spent much of the campaign on the sidelines injured.

Much of United's output has come from Marcus Rashford, who is the only player in the squad to break double figures of goals so far this term.

Ten Hag was asked about the form of two centre forwards ahead of United's clash with rivals Leeds on Wednesday, and chose to leap to their defence.

Regarding Weghorst, Ten Hag said: "He is the one who makes players around him play better.

"As a team we have to work better to anticipate his movements because his movements are good, quite a lot of times he was close. He had many good actions and already a lot of good contributions to our results.

"He will score, but in the meantime do the other stuff, do it good. It is about not scoring individual but scoring from the team and the team has to win. He is doing a very good job at this moment in several aspects of football."

Speaking on Martial, he added: "He is not always available, but also I see the other side when he is available, he was never 100 % this season but he had a big impact every time he is available, even when he is at 80, 85, 90%.

"So we do everything and Anthony Martial is doing everything. I think Anthony Martial is the player who has spent the most hours at Carrington this season, to return to recover, to get back, it is really so a pity for him that he is disappointed.

"He is not always available and we want him to be always available because that will improve our game and because routines can't become routines when you are not always available."

On this edition of The Promised Land, part of the 90min podcast network, Scott Saunders & Rob Blanchette discuss Jadon Sancho's return as a number 10 for Manchester United, Marcel Sabitzer's arrival from Bayern Munich & more.

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