Anthony Martial has defended his decision to go AWOL from Manchester United’s tour of the US for the birth of his baby boy and told the club that family comes first.
Martial confirmed he will return to Manchester on Thursday having not been seen for more than a week since leaving United’s training base in LA against the wishes of manager Jose Mourinho to fly to Paris.
The 22-year-old France winger has not trained for eight days and could face a fine of £180,000, the equivalent of two weeks’ wages, if United decide that the unauthorised absence constitutes a breach of his contract.
Mourinho called on Martial to return to America after his partner Melanie Da Cruz gave birth to their son Swan.
But after ending the tour with a 2-1 win over Real Madrid in Miami, the United boss admitted that he didn’t know whether Martial would rejoin his team-mates this week.
Merci à tous pour vos messages. Mon petit Swan va bien, pour la maman ça était plus difficile mais Grâce à Dieu elle va mieux maintenant. Desolé mais ma famille passera toujours avant Tout… Retour demain à Manchester ??
— Anthony Martial (@AnthonyMartial) August 1, 2018
Martial’s future at Old Trafford now hangs in the balance after his decision to leave the tour stretched his relationship with Mourinho to breaking point.
The United boss wants to sell the forward before the August 9 transfer deadline and, three years after arriving from Monaco in a £36million deal, Martial wants to go. He left The Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills last week and made it clear to friends that he had no intention of returning to camp.
After United’s 4-1 defeat by Liverpool in Michigan on Saturday, Mourinho called on Martial to come back. ‘He has the baby and after the baby is born — beautiful baby, full of health, thank God — he should be here and he is not here,’ said the Portuguese coach.
The United players who went on tour have been given Thursday off. They will re-assemble at Carrington on Friday.
Mourinho already faces the prospect of being without a number of first-team players for the start of the season but has been boosted by the news that Romelu Lukaku is cutting short his holiday to help the club.
Having fired Belgium to third place in the World Cup, Lukaku will return to training three days early along with England duo Marcus Rashford and Phil Jones so he can be available for the first match of the season against Leicester next Friday.
‘We start the Premier League in eight days and these are the players that we have plus Victor Lindelof, who started training two days ago, Marcus Rashford, Jones and Lukaku because they gave to the group and to the team three days of their holidays,’ said Mourinho following United’s win over Madrid.
‘They are coming back three days early to try to be available for the team. And with the fantastic spirit we have in the majority of the players — I repeat, in the majority of the players we have a fantastic spirit — we go with everything we have to the Premier League.’
Alexis Sanchez scored United’s first goal and set up the second for Ander Herrera as United ended a difficult tour on a high at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
A Madrid side playing their first pre-season game hit back through Karim Benzema but couldn’t find an equaliser.
Having criticised the tour and the squad available to him in an extraordinary outburst at the weekend, Mourinho maintained that victory over the European champions meant very little.
‘The match doesn’t change anything,’ he said. ‘If you play Real Madrid in the Champions League that result is important, but not today.
‘I didn’t learn anything. I know what Herrera, Juan Mata and Sanchez are. I know the kids are very young and need time to grow up. I know my players gave everything and in the last 15 minutes we are dead and they bring on Toni Kroos and Marco Asensio and Isco.
‘I thought we wouldn’t resist it but the boys gave everything and we try to fight for the best result.
‘We tried to organise the best possible team to defend against them. I was not working to prepare the team for the future of the Premier League, I was just trying to get the best possible result. We were just trying to survive. Tactically, it means nothing.’