‘Martial has to listen to me’ Jose warns
JOSE MOURINHO called out Anthony Martial’s agent last night for unsettling his young French striker.
Martial scored his first Premier League goal since October 2 in the 2-1 win over Middlesbrough yesterday and produced one of his best displays of the season.
But Mourinho chose his postmatch press conference to criticise Martial’s agent, Philippe Lamboley, for trying to engineer a move away from Old Trafford for the 21-year-old.
“Anthony played well,” he said. “He scored, he fought, he created chances.
“But he has to listen to me and not to his agent.
“He has to listen to me in training every day and to all the feedback I give him to try to help make him a better player.
“With Henrik Mkhitaryan, when he was out of the team, his agent was calling me almost every day and saying, ‘Mkhitaryan will be a better player with you. Keep going.’
“But with Martial, I read the papers every day and see Martial is going to Sevilla, Martial goes on loan, Martial is not happy.
“He has to listen to me because he is someone who has amazing conditions to be a top player.”
Swansea are set to appoint Paul Clement as their new manager.
Clement, the former Derby boss and current Bayern Munich assistant, has been in talks with Swansea over the last 24 hours to become the club’s third manager of the season.
And it is understood that the deal could be finalised over the next 48 hours before Swansea – who will head into 2017 bottom of the Premier League – visit Crystal Palace on Tuesday.
Previous boss, Bob Bradley, was dismissed on Tuesday after overseeing seven defeats in 11 matches having replaced Francesco Guidolin at the Liberty Stadium in October
It was a run that left Swansea second bottom of the Premier League with just 12 points from 18 games, and after Hull picked up a point on Friday, the Swans crashed to rock bottom spot.