Anthony Martial has had a pretty bizarre season and we're not even at Christmas yet.

The Frenchman looked firmly on his way out of Manchester United in the summer thanks to a well-publicised spat with Jose Mourinho.

Martial hadn't looked like a key part of Mourinho's plans even before he went AWOL from United's pre-season training camp for the birth of his child.

That led to Mourinho publically calling his player out and Martial's position at United looked untenable.

But he stayed, somewhat surprisingly, and as we near the halfway point of the season, Martial is United's top scorer with 8 goals in 13 starts.

Needless to say, that makes things complicated when you consider his contract situation.

Martial's contract was set to end in June 2019 but United have just triggered a one-year option to extend that to 2020.

It means that the 23-year-old now has 18 months left on his deal and that gives his club a limited number of windows to get value for money if they sell him.

The other option is to agree to a new deal, of course, and Martial's agent has recently offered an update on just how likely that is.

"I am very pessimistic about discussions going positively," Philippe Lamboley told RMC.

"They've already sent us several offers that do not meet our expectations, starting on bases very far from our wishes. We are far from agreement for the time being."

Okay, well it doesn't sound likely at all.

It's rare that an agent comes out and says anything with outright certainty, let alone as bluntly as that.

If United want to keep Martial around - and it's safe to say that they probably do want their 23-year-old top scorer at the club - then something is going to have to change.

And it looks like United may have just found it.