Michael Carrick has moved to quash suggestions that Lisandro Mart\u00ednez is lacking commitment, after the defender came under a fierce public attack from Nicky Butt.<\/p>\n
Questions have been raised over Mart\u00ednez\u2019s future at Old Trafford, with his current deal due to expire at the end of the season although it does include the option of a 12-month extension. But Carrick rejected the idea that the situation has created any issue behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no concerns about his commitment at all,\u201d the United boss stressed. \u201cThings happen in football sometimes. You do things, sometimes you make your decisions, sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes it goes well for you. But the commitment is not an issue, for sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dressing room is a good, good place, so perception\u2019s a funny thing. You can make things look in different ways and think about all sorts of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said it before, the commitment of the players to the club, to me, to each other, I don\u2019t question that at all. We need to play better. We can make better decisions, but commitment\u2019s not a thing at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
That defence came after Butt delivered a blistering assessment of Mart\u00ednez\u2019s recent behaviour and performances. The former United midfielder, who made 387 appearances for the club between 1993 and 2004, did not hold back in his criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat lad\u2019s a bluffer, full stop,\u201d Butt told Football Uncensored . \u201cJust a bluffer. The Butcher, his nickname is. I mean it\u2019s … yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butt also referenced Mart\u00ednez\u2019s \u201ctouchy\u201d response to previous criticism from Paul Scholes and said he felt the defender was short on effort and conviction. He then pointed to what he saw as a costly incident against Chelsea.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got the audacity to go out onto an interview and s— off the powers that be about buying players when he\u2019s not even playing well himself,\u201d Butt continued. \u201cIf they were going to go and buy players, he\u2019d be careful because he\u2019s the first one they\u2019d replace. Performance-wise, he\u2019s been lacking so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, I was never the best player. I know my level, I know I had a lot of bad games. But one thing I did every single time I went out was ran my myself into the ground and was honest when looking at my teammates in the eye and said, \u2018I gave you everything I\u2019ve got. I might\u2019ve been c— today but I worked hard.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c[Mart\u00ednez] threw it in the other day [against Chelsea]. He threw it in with that elbow because that was the most obvious thing anyone could do. The reason why he did it is because he\u2019s not strong enough to defend properly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thought, \u2018You know what, I\u2019ll cut corners, I\u2019ll cheat, I\u2019ll put my elbow is someone\u2019s face and I\u2019ll get sent off and I\u2019ll leave all the other 10 lads, who by the way I said two weeks ago that these aren\u2019t good enough to play with me.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting changed in the changing room and I\u2019m sitting next to these lads and they\u2019re going, \u2018He thinks I\u2019m not good enough.\u2019 If that was back in my day, he would\u2019ve completely have had his head ripped off. Everyone would\u2019ve said, \u2018Who do you think you are talking about me like that with the performances you\u2019re putting in?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick backs Mart\u00ednez\u2019s commitment as Butt delivers a fierce criticism of the defender.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1836,180,182],"class_list":["post-22191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22191","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=22191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}