A rivalry between Manchester United reserve goalkeeper Lee Grant and Anthony Martial in training is helping the striker improve his finishing.
Martial enjoyed a stellar 2019/20 season, scoring 23 goals in all competitions, which is his best tally in a United shirt. He has shone under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after being handed the No.9 shirt and a more central role in the Norwegian’s side.
Solskjaer has spoken about the friendly rivalry between Martial and fellow goal-scorer Marcus Rashford, which is helping United.
And now goalkeeper Grant has told United’s website how he encourages Martial’s shooting to get better and better behind the scenes.
“We have a nice little battle actually. I’m always on at him in training, always digging at him in training to try to do better.
“I’ll always try to get the upper hand whenever he’s shooting and, if we’re doing drills, and it might be really normal. We might be running a phase and passively shooting into the goal – the phase finishes in the middle third and the shot is not really full tempo. If Anthony shoots and I save it, I go: ‘1-0, Anto’. Then he’ll get this glint in his eye and the next one, it won’t matter if the gaffer says don’t worry about the shot in the end, he’ll come through and want to shoot in a one-on-one.
“He won’t even say anything, he’ll just do that [1-1], and then the next one, and we’ll do that all day. So a lovely little rivalry goes on between us.”
