Martial voted Man of the Match on Boxing Day

Manchester United forward Anthony Martial received a late Christmas present on Boxing Day by winning our official Man-of-the-Match award, after scoring twice in the 4-1 win over Newcastle.

The Reds fell behind at Old Trafford to an early strike from Magpies midfielder Matty Longstaff, but parity was thankfully restored in speedy fashion thanks to a low finish from Martial on 24 minutes.

After Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford both scored to make it 3-1, Anthony sealed his first-ever league brace at the Theatre of Dreams with a delicate chip over the goalkeeper on 51 minutes.

“The key is to give Anthony the ball,” explained manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. “He's not going to be one who runs down the channels all day long. Give him the ball and feed him.

”The boys have said that so many times themselves, how do we score a goal - just feed Anto more and play it forward into the front men more. For Anto, it's important for him to touch the ball a lot and then he feels in the game. It was almost the same goal as his one against Manchester City, the one down to the bottom with his left foot and he could have got a hat-trick.“

The former Monaco striker was substituted shortly after the hour mark after hitting the woodwork, preventing him scoring a treble, as the boss rested him with Saturday’s trip to Burnley clearly in mind.

Nevertheless, Martial had already done enough to win our star-man award, earning 70 per cent of the votes that were cast by users of our Official App.

That was a greater tally than his fellow nominees Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Greenwood, who earned 10 and 20 per cent respectively.

Martial's attention has now turned to Saturday's Premier League match against Burnley, which is under 48 hours away.

Kick-off at Turf Moor is set for 19:45 GMT and fans in the UK can watch it live on BT Sport. MUTV's live coverage of the fixture begins at 18:30 GMT.