It is not often that someone would gleefully part with €10 million (£8.7million) but if Anthony Martial manages to score two goals at Old Trafford tomorrow afternoon to sink Liverpool, Manchester United would gladly take the hit.

Monaco are due that additional sum when Martial reaches 25 competitive goals for United, with the France forward on 23. There would be few more romantic storylines tomorrow than Wayne Rooney coming off the bench to claim the winner and, with it, a club-record 250th goal against the side he loves to hate. But the prospect of Martial reaching a milestone of his own, on the same ground and against the same opposition he announced himself in such spectacular fashion on his United debut 16 months ago, would not be a bad substitute.

It has been a tough second season in English football for the most expensive teenage signing in the game’s history but, just as United are coming to the boil after a difficult start, so the player Louis van Gaal said he signed as a present for his successor finally appears to be taking Jose Mourinho’s bait. Rip-roaring displays against relegation-battling Middlesbrough and a hopeless Reading and a sprightly cameo against an injury-ravaged Hull City may not be enough to guarantee Martial has turned a corner.