‘We expect more from the top’: Lisandro Martinez scorches Man United leadership in astonishing interview

Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez called out the club’s technical director Jason Wilcox for not supporting Michael Carrick in the transfer market in an astonishing interview following the 2-0 defeat at Atletico Madrid.

United have won just two of their first nine games of the season, and are winless in their last five, after a summer in which the club spent £148m on upgrading their midfield, but in which they were also outspent by their closest rivals and failed to strengthen other key areas.

A fuming Martinez said the United players wanted the club to show more ambition to build a Premier League title challenge after finishing third last season and insisted others must take the blame for their poor start to the new campaign, pointing his finger at the “technical director” Wilcox and the club’s wider leadership.

“Really poor. Really poor. I have to control myself a lot,” Martinez told Prime Video after the defeat at Atletico. “But… sometimes it’s a reflection of the mirror of how is our club at the moment, you know? 
We did a fantastic season last season and now we expect more from the top, from up.

“You know, doing more, [signing] more players to compete because many, many teams, bring many players as well. And today, also, Atletico, they have an amazing team. And they deserved to win today.

“I expect more, 100 per cent. I expect more from our technical director [Jason Wilcox]. I have to be honest, you know. As players, we have to do more, but it’s so important when you make a strong squad to be ready to this kind of night.

“I think last season, we did everything, we create a base to build an amazing team. But this is something, to be honest. And to prove something, you know? It’s annoying, disappointing, coming here, and I’m not seeing my team trying to get an amazing result here. It’s disappointing.”

Carrick will now be under further pressure ahead of Sunday’s trip to Leeds but Martinez said there should be criticism of “other areas” of the club rather than continuing the cycle of blaming the manager.

“He [Carrick] does his best. Every season is different. You can’t stay with what you did last season,” Martinez said. “The teams knows how you play, they know every detail, if you don’t change next season is a big problem.

“You can’t keep changing, changing, changing the manager. What about other areas? I can’t say more. Tonight it is easy to say the coach, easy to say the players but also we have to see other areas.”

Carrick told Prime Video immediately after Martinez’s interview that he had not seen the Argentina international’s comments and refused to respond to them when they were read out to him by interviewer Gabriel Clarke.

“I haven’t seen it. After a game like this you come here to try and get something from the game and you are disappointed and can be emotional. I have not seen it so I don’t think it is the right time. We all care and show that in different ways but now is the time to be together and work through.”