Lisandro Mart\u00ednez has put himself at the centre of a serious Manchester United problem after a furious response to Tuesday\u2019s Champions League defeat to Atl\u00e9tico Madrid. His remarks did not just take aim at the display on the pitch, but also appeared to question the club\u2019s direction at senior level and the standards of several teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast season we did everything, we created the base to create an amazing team. It is annoying, disappointing coming here and I am not seeing my team trying to get an amazing result.<\/p>\n
\u201cChanging, changing, changing manager? What about other areas? I can\u2019t say more. It\u2019s easy to blame the coach, it\u2019s easy to blame the players, but what about other areas?\u201d<\/p>\n
That final line was delivered with his index finger raised, a gesture that seemed pointed toward those above him. He later repeated the theme in comments to CBS.<\/p>\n
The reaction inside the club has reportedly been severe. Sky Sports said \u201cat least one other player\u201d confronted Mart\u00ednez on the flight back to Manchester, while \u201canger and bemusement\u201d was said to have spread through the hierarchy and the dressing room. Amad Diallo added to the tension with an ambiguous Snapchat post: \u201cI have no words. F—ing disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wayne Rooney was equally direct on Prime Video. \u201cSomething like that will rip that dressing room apart.\u201d He added: \u201cIt looks like that was a bit of an agenda [from Mart\u00ednez] \u2026 he\u2019s wanted to say that, because that doesn\u2019t mirror the performance. I thought the performance was better. It\u2019s a bit disrespectful to his teammates as well. He is disrespecting his teammates because he\u2019s saying the team isn\u2019t good enough.\u201d Rooney also argued that \u201cBruno [Fernandes] is the only one who has any right to come out and say anything like that as captain. Even then, it should be behind closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing is awkward for Mart\u00ednez, who was already keen to leave during the 2026 summer window and had Atl\u00e9tico Madrid as his preferred destination. He is now in the final year of his deal, with United holding an option to extend it to 2028, although The Athletic said \u201cThe prospect of him extending terms in the wake of his interviews is remote in the extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report also says it is \u201cinevitable that Mart\u00ednez will be fined\u201d and a January sale may now be a realistic outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mart\u00ednez\u2019s sharp post-match comments have triggered anger inside United and raised fresh doubts about his future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1047,180,182],"class_list":["post-21768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-champions-league","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}