Lisandro Martinez did not wait for the dressing room door to shut. Manchester United had just lost 2-0 at Atletico Madrid, their fifth game without a win, and the Argentine walked straight to an Amazon Prime camera and started talking about the people upstairs. Sir Jim Ratcliffe was still in his seat at the Metropolitano, next to chief executive Omar Berrada. Within the hour the interview had become a bigger story than the match.
Martinez names the technical director
He began gently enough, with credit for the opposition and a line about last season. Then he got to the point. "I expect more [investment]. 100%. I expect more from our technical director," he said, meaning Jason Wilcox. "I have to be honest, as players we have to do more but it is also important when you make a strong squad to be ready for this kind of night."
The sharpest part came next. "You can't keep changing, changing, changing the manager," Martinez said. "What about other areas? I can't say more." He also pointed back to last season, when United finished third and booked a Champions League return for the first time in three years: "Last season we did everything, we created the base to create an amazing team."
Rooney says it will cost them
Wayne Rooney and Ashley Young were both in Madrid, and neither liked it. "Something like that will rip that dressing room apart," Rooney told Amazon Prime, recalling his own public criticism of United in 2010, a mistake he has since apologised for. "It is disrespectful to his team-mates. He is saying his team-mates aren't good enough." Rooney thought the interview looked rehearsed. Young, more briefly, said players have to produce and that nothing will change between now and the weekend except the mood.
Not everyone agreed. On BBC Radio 5 Live, former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson questioned the timing and then came down on Martinez's side anyway. "On the flip side, I actually quite like it - a player being honest," he said. "Everyone can see they didn't recruit well enough and they need more players and the squad's not strong enough." Tielemans, signed from Aston Villa for £35m in July, was asked the same question by the host broadcaster and declined to answer it.
The spending record behind the row
The complaint has a paper trail. United spent £155m on three midfielders in the summer and nothing anywhere else, leaving Benjamin Sesko without striking support and Luke Shaw without competition at left-back. Their last win came against Azerbaijani champions Sabah FK on 10 September; the only other victory in nine matches this season was a comeback against newly promoted Ipswich. Michael Carrick, who won 12 of his 17 games as interim boss and earned a two-year contract for it, is now under the sort of pressure that ended Erik ten Hag in October 2024 and Ruben Amorim in January 2026. Dan Ashworth lasted five months as sporting director before being dismissed in December 2024.
Carrick, asked about the interview three times in his news conference, mostly declined to engage. "I haven't seen the interview. I've half heard about it. It's a bit about the emotions of the game," he said, adding that he would find out more before deciding whether to speak to the player. Behind all of it sits a balance sheet showing £1.1bn of debt and a £63.5m land purchase for a 100,000-seat stadium expected to cost north of £2bn, money some supporters would rather have seen spent on a centre-forward.
Contract context: Lisandro Martinez joined Manchester United from Ajax in 2022 and has one year left on his deal, with no extension agreed. United have gone five matches without a win for the first time since 2024-25. Cristian Romero, his Argentina defensive partner who made similar comments about Tottenham's board last season, was in the Atletico side that beat them on Tuesday.
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