Twitter Thread ‘Proves’ Anthony Martial Is Better Than Roberto Firmino

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Roberto Firmino appeals to referee Mike Dean after fouling Aaron Lennon.

Reuters / Carl Recine

Twitter has basically become the breeding spot for massive fanbases and that includes football fanatics.

Football Twitter (commonly termed as FT) has become one of the biggest communities on the website and is the best place to get some brilliant tactical analysis or the most shocking opinions one can find on any football related topic. Fans represent players or clubs and defend them with great pride.

A lot of players have a cult-like following on Twitter, who go to big lengths to praise and defend their favourites. One such group of people are the Anthony Martial fans of FT.

The Frenchman only seems to be rated highly by a small section of the community whilst a big part of it has given up on him due to his lack of consistency. This has caused Martial fans to go the extra mile to defend their star forward.

One such fan – who goes by the handle @DrippyMartial – passionately argues that the former Monaco star is a better player than Roberto Firmino.

Read the thread here:

In the thread, DrippyMartial makes many convincing arguments. The Frenchman clearly has recorded more goal contributions this season, despite playing significantly less amount of minutes compared to the Liverpool man. The former also has a much better shooting accuracy and conversion rate, making him the more clinical attacker.

And despite playing in a much better side compared to the United forward, Firmino does not better him in the goals per game department by much. When minutes per goal is looked at, the Brazilian international easily falls behind.

However, what the Red Devils supporter fails to mention is the former Hoffenheim star’s defensive capabilities that is vital to Jurgen Klopp’s Gengenpressing system. The striker is also a more progressive passer of the ball whilst having the stamina to engage in pressing for full 90 minutes. Moreover, the Champions League winner’s physicality also does not allow him to be bullied off the ball like the Red Devils’ sometimes does.

On the other hand, the one mistake DrippyMartial made was calling his favourite player a false No. 9 just to justify his comparisons with ‘Bobby’. This is in fact furtherest from the truth which any casual fan can see with just one look at the season heatmaps of these two players. Like all modern strikers, the United No. 9 does drops deep and drifts wide at times but those behvaiours do not go to the extent of the ex-Figueirense man.

Although it all comes down to preference at the end of the day, two big aspects separate the two – European and international pedigree; the department Anthony Martial lacks any comparable feats.