Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand admits striker Anthony Martial has gone backwards.

The Frenchman struggled under Jose Mourinho, but appeared to have found his footing during manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's first full season in charge.

Martial excelled at centre-forward in the 2019-2020 campaign, but regressed in 2020-2021.

As the 2021-2022 season gets underway, Martial has not impressed in his early appearances for United.

Ferdinand told his FIVE YouTube channel: "I think the most frustrating thing about him is that he's actually gone backwards from when he first signed.

"If you're a player and you look at when he hit the scene with the two goals against Liverpool and you think to yourself, 'Wow what have we signed here?'. He's not really hit those heights since.

"As a player I'd love to be able to get inside his head and spend time with him. Everyone thinks they can affect someone with a conversation.

"You'd be saying to him, 'Are you actually happy with what you're doing, are you happy with your trajectory of how it's going?'.

"Talent wise, from what I'm told from people, I remember Michael Carrick first went in and saw him and said, 'Rio, this kid could be one of the best players on the planet easy, some of the stuff he does in training takes your breath away'.

"But sometimes there are players who are great in training but don't replicate enough in games. I hope he's not going down [that route].

'He's still young enough to change it by the way but I don't know what he needs, a rocket, or he needs someone in the changing room to be getting hold of him and demanding standards every single day and every single game."