The former Gunners defender was adamant that the French forward made the right call by joining the current Red Devils team.

Ex-Arsenal star Lee Dixon has stated that Anthony Martial made the wrong decision by joining the current Manchester United side. The former England international made the intriguing assessment after lifting the lid on a conversation he had with his ex-teammate Thierry Henry.

After making waves in the English media by sealing a Deadline Day move to Manchester United in the summer of 2015, Anthony Martial was immediately likened to Henry due to the similarity in the style of play of the two compatriots. Like the former Arsenal striker, the ex-AS Monaco prodigy had an inconsistent start to life in the Premiership and often came under immense scrutiny for his non-performance.

Now the tables seem to have turned under the supervision of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with the player well on course to beat his 17-goal tally from his best individual season till date. Before the coronavirus pandemic halted the season, the 24-year-old attacker had scored 16 goals in 34 appearances - 11 of which were scored in 23 Premier League appearances.

However, former Arsenal player Lee Dixon remains unconvinced of Martial's exploits so far. While speaking on the Arsenal podcast Handbrake Off, he revealed that he spoke with Thierry Henry about the struggles of the United man. Here, the latter explained that his compatriot has struggled at Old Trafford because the dressing room he came into lacked the experienced characters he needed for his development.

"I presumed Henry knew Martial because they're from the same area in France so I asked him about Martial," Dixon declared.

"I said, 'What he's like?' and he looked at me with that look that he does as if to say: 'Have I not already spoken to you about this?'

"And he said, 'He's exactly like I was when I came to Arsenal, he needs to go through the process like I did with you lot and I don't know if the Manchester United dressing room is like that.'

"He said that was the making of him.

"To liken himself to Martial or another player to him, it really painted a picture of what Martial was like and what his character was like because he's super-talented like Thierry was and I think his development would have been similar.

"I'm not saying he would have been as good as Thierry – but would have been similar if he had been in the old United dressing room with the characters like we had in our dressing room. He certainly talks about that as a real learning lesson in his curve to get how brilliant he was."