Inconvenient truth

FLORENCIA TAN JUN/UEFA/ GETTY IMAGES

Lisandro Martínez was highly critical of the United 

hierarchy after the team’s 2-0 loss to Atlético Madrid

Martínez may not be ideal messenger but United criticism hits the right targets

Has any serving United player spoken out so frankly?

15 Oct 2026 - The Guardian

Jonathan Liew

Heartbreaking: the worst defender you know just made a great point. Nobody would describe Lisandro Martínez as the ideal person to scrutinise Manchester United’s indifferent start to the season, given that his errors against Fulham and Tottenham are partly responsible for it. “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this,” Martínez burbles on Amazon Prime after United’s 2-0 defeat by Atlético Madrid on Tuesday, dressed in a hot dog costume and throwing his arms out in mock innocence.

For those with no interest in engaging with what Martínez had to say, this alone will be sufficient grounds to ignore him. Already you can sense the squeamishness of former players for whom the violation of an omertà is the cardinal sin, a phantom limb that still tingles years after they last stepped into a dressing room. “Disrespectful,” reckoned Wayne Rooney. “I don’t feel like he’s got the right,” agreed Ashley Young. “These things don’t end well, man,” Rio Ferdinand observed on his podcast.

But traducing the messenger will always be easier than hearing the message, even if Martínez’s views are widely shared within the United dressing room. If the fallout from the Manchester City legal case has demonstrated anything, it is English football’s ingrained reluctance to scrutinise the owners and executives who hold more influence over the sport than anybody else.

All the same, it’s worth parsing exactly what Martínez was complaining about. Player calls out board – and specifically “technical director” Jason Wilcox – for failing to invest sufficiently in the squad over the summer. This was a summer in which United brought in three midfielders (Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans, Carlos Baleba), a goalkeeper (Karl Darlow), nobody up front and nobody in defence. So far, so simple.

But let’s begin to unpick the threads. Why did United not buy a defender in the summer, despite pursuing deals for Lewis Hall and Myles Lewis-Skelly? Because they were unable to sell a defender. There was no interest in Diogo Dalot or Noussair Mazraoui, nor in Harry Maguire, nor in Luke Shaw or Martínez, whose contracts are up next summer in any case. This is the product of recruitment decisions made years ago. But why do United, one of the world’s most lucrative clubs, need to sell to buy in the first place?

Perhaps for the same reason they baulked at the asking price for Elliot Anderson and signed the inconsistent Santos and the adequate but overpromoted Tielemans instead: this is a club in austerity measures, whose partowner Jim Ratcliffe has been furiously cutting costs and raising ticket prices, determined to curb the years of excess that preceded him. But why would United, one of the most commercially successful clubs ever, need to cut costs?

Perhaps as a result of the more than £1bn drained out of the club by the Glazers in their 21 years of ownership, not just in dividends but share sales and interest payments on the debt they undertook to buy the club, while neglecting the maintenance of Old Trafford and the training ground at Carrington. Whether he knows it or not, when Martínez is criticising the lack of investment he is in effect holding the Glazers accountable for their avarice and mismanagement.

All of which lends a significance to Martínez’s intervention that goes beyond the churn of the weekly news cycle. Has any serving United player spoken out so frankly about the ruins of the Glazer ownership? Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made a minor stand in early 2005, before they had arrived at the club. Cristiano Ronaldo threw some hand grenades over his shoulder a few days before he left for the second time. Others waited for the safety of retirement, when their disgruntlement could be monetised for personal gain, rather than used to stigmatise them, as Martínez will doubtless be stigmatised.

Does any of this help United to win games in the short term? Almost certainly not. Martínez will surely be dispatched to the bomb squad for the crime of pointing out that the emperor secured his throne almost entirely through the use of paymentin-kind loans.

Michael Carrick too will be gone before long, away to the great Overlap podcast in the sky. A few months ago I wrote that Carrick might be the ideal man to cut through the noise and nonsense. I was wrong. The noise has beaten him; the nonsense always wins.

Of course it’s not Carrick’s fault that United haven’t signed a new defender in almost two years, that Bruno Fernandes is clearly playing through discomfort, that Joshua Zirkzee is still hanging around, that the ownership embarked on a purge of season-ticket holders in the summer, generating a wave of ill-feeling that can be felt at Old Trafford on matchdays: an entire fanbase trying to work out whether they still care.

But accountability is for the little people, and far easier to replace a coach on a modest 20-month contract than to oust Ineos or the Glazers, to replace Wilcox or Omar Berrada, even if we now know they partly built their reputations on the success of a club that has been found to have serially cheated. Bumper returns for the owners, price hikes for the fans, corners cut on the pitch; this is the story of the modern Manchester United, which by no coincidence is also the story of modern football.

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JUANJO MARTIN/EPA 

Amad Diallo produced an angry yet 

ambiguous Snapchat post on Tuesday

The key questions

Who is to blame for United’s malaise?

Wilcox wields near unilateral power on football decisions. The transfer window was his responsibility

15 Oct 2026 - The Guardian

Jamie Jackson

After Manchester United’s 2-0 loss at Atlético Madrid, Lisandro Martínez teed off at the director of football, Jason Wilcox, and the rest of the executive. “We don’t have the best squad at the moment compared with other top teams,” said the defender. “I expect more [investment], 100%. I expect more from our technical director [Jason Wilcox] … Really poor [the Atlético defeat] – I have to control myself a lot but something is a reflection of the mirror of how our club is at the moment.” Here we consider the key questions emerging from Martínez’s explosive remarks.

Is Martínez’s view reflective of the squad generally?

Yes is the short answer. The Guardian has been told the decision to target three midfielders in Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans and Carlos Baleba caused bemusement in the squad. Carrick led United to third last term after the side only had 17 league games remaining when he took over in January, having been eliminated from the other competitions. The need for defensive reinforcements is particularly acute because the back four of Diogo Dalot, Martínez, Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw have been together since 2022. Martínez is out of contract next summer and it is thought the 28-year-old may not be offered a new deal, so teammates are conscious his outburst also came because he expects to leave.

How culpable is Wilcox?

As director of football the 55-yearold wields near-unilateral power on football decisions, with only Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who controls sporting policy, above him. If the buck stops with the executive, the most recent transfer window was Wilcox’s responsibility. This was the latest in a line of missteps. One concerns when Dan Ashworth (Wilcox’s predecessor) was on gardening leave from Newcastle in the first half of 2024, Wilcox interviewed potential replacements for Erik ten Hag before, oddly, deeming that the head coach should stay. The Dutchman signed a fresh contract but was sacked that autumn. Another involves Wilcox’s major falling out with the man he hired as the Dutchman’s successor, Ruben Amorim, after which the Portuguese said the director of football had told him he should change his favoured 3-4-3 shape. “I came here to be the manager of Manchester United – not to be the coach of Manchester United,” said Amorim, after a 1-1 draw at Leeds on 4 January (his job title was head coach). He was sacked the next day. Wilcox worked with Omar Berrada, United’s chief executive, at Manchester City, where Berrada rose to become chief football operations officer, and Wilcox became academy director. Wilcox moved to Southampton and became director of football from summer 2023 until April 2024, when he joined United, having been identified by Berrada, so there is scrutiny of his experience at elite level.

How much blame is Carrick’s?

The 45-year-old’s ability to prosper is related to the quality of Wilcox’s work, so he cannot be solely responsible for a dire six points from six league games. Yet by definition his role as head coach demands Carrick do the best with his resources, and that progress is made on the training ground. On matchdays there is scant excuse for United’s disjointedness, inferior running stats and inability, twice, to take advantage against 10 men: the 1-0 loss to City and Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Tottenham. How is Carrick viewed by his players? According to Santos they back him. “We believe in the manager, we believe in the whole staff, we believe in [ourselves as] players,” he said after the Atlético game. “We are in a bad moment but we have to work to change this result.”

Is United’s unity and discipline crumbling?

For further evidence see Amad Diallo’s Snapchat post after the defeat by Atlético: “Fucking disgrace; I have no words.” So United have a World Cup-winner, Martínez, aiming shots at Wilcox and by implication Ratcliffe and Berrada, and a fellow senior player, Diallo, cursing but in ambiguous fashion, adding to the sense of meltdown because it is unclear whether the “disgrace” meant the performance, Martínez’s diatribe, the squad, or something else. All of this is mirrored on the pitch, where United’s 671.4km run in the Premier League is the fifth-lowest (Arsenal’s 716.2 is the highest), and their 581 sprints the fourth-lowest (Brentford’s 765 the most).

Where are the Glazers in all this?

Wilcox can point to the six American siblings, who remain majority owners and whose family has placed an eye-watering £1.1bn-plus debt on the club. Wilcox oversaw a £155m summer outlay and a net spend of about £100m in a summer when City’s corresponding figures were £457.5m and about £175m. City buying players such as Enzo Fernández (for a British recordequalling £125m), Elliot Anderson (£115m), Ayyoub Bouaddi (£81m) and Iliman Ndiaye (£65m) showed greater financial muscle, helped by being much better sellers. How they have reached this point has, though, been thrown into sharp focus by last month’s verdict that they have serially cheated.

Are there positives for United?

Any straw should be clutched at so Carrick can view the first 97 minutes of Baleba’s United career as a rosy augury. After entering on 59 minutes against Spurs, a cute swivel and deft chip to Bruno Fernandes was a moment as impressive as the rest of his debut, and at Atlético the 22-yearold hunted down opponents and crunched into tackles, suggesting his game contains energy, muscularity and skill. It’s early days but perhaps if Baleba had been fit to start the campaign he might have affected one or more of the defeat at Hull, the 2-2 draw at Everton when Ainsley MaitlandNiles equalised late, the 1-0 loss to City when Phil Foden was sent off after 23 minutes or the Carabao Cup elimination by Brighton.

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Wilcox: the ‘best eyes’ or promoted too fast?

United’s director of football is under fire over his summer signings but he retains the backing of co-owner Ratcliffe

15 Oct 2026 - The Guardian

Will Unwin

Lisandro Martínez is not naive. At 28, he has experienced plenty in football and knows the causes of success and failure. He has a World Cup winner’s medal, whereas Jason Wilcox has overseen the latest period of mediocrity at Manchester United, during which the focus has fallen more on the team’s performances than the wider reasons behind it.

Martínez was not solely speaking for himself when, after United’s defeat at Atlético Madrid, he strongly criticised Wilcox. His views are shared by others at United frustrated by the output from above and who “expect” more from a director of football. Wilcox knows he is under pressure because the inadequate results cannot all be pinned on Michael Carrick, who is working with a squad unable to cope with the rigours of challenging at the top of the Premier League and facing Europe’s elite.

Clubs live and die by their recruitment, and United sitting 13th in the Premier League after one win from six matches does not suggest the squad is in rude health.

Wilcox would struggle to make the case that any of his recruits, with the possible exception of Senne Lammens, have markedly increased in value. There are many sporting directors more adept at finding undervalued talent. Wilcox was offered the chance to sign Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest a year before the midfielder signed for Manchester City, but decided against moving for a player who continued to grow in value and was eventually out of United’s price range. If Sir Jim Ratcliffe is so eager to run United as a business, questioning why the outlay on players leads to so little return would be a sensible starting point.

Wilcox arrived at Old Trafford in April 2024 after less than a year as the director of football, in the Championship with Southampton, who gave him his first executive role in senior football. Before that, the former Blackburn winger had worked in youth development, eventually becoming City’s academy director, and was well respected, but whether this was sufficient grounding for leading United’s football operation was debatable. Wilcox oversaw at City the emergence of a glut of talent, including Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers. Some of those who have dealt with him feel a senior academy position is where his skills lie.

A key reason why he was brought back to his native north-west by United was Omar Berrada’s appointment as chief executive. The pair worked together at City and there was a high degree of mutual respect, supported by the – now tainted – achievements of the club. Wilcox was given the title technical director and was supposed to work under the experienced sporting director Dan Ashworth, who lasted only five months under Ratcliffe, earning Wilcox a rapid promotion.

Some United staff, in place when Wilcox arrived, grew frustrated at the number of former City Football Group appointments being made. Wilcox was influential in the recruitment of Ruben Amorim. The experiment failed, accelerated by a breakdown in the relationship between the head coach and Wilcox.

When it comes to players there is increasingly a focus on Premier League experience with Wilcox; this summer Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba arrived from top-flight English clubs for a combined £155m. That outlay, however, meant there was no money for a left-back or backup striker. In the defeat at Atlético, Carrick played the 20-year-old centre-back Ayden Heaven out of position to cover Luke Shaw’s latest absence, summing up the shallowness of the squad.

Ratcliffe, the minority owner, is on record as saying he has a lot of time for Wilcox, “When I listen to Jason speak, I get what he’s saying,” he told the Times in March 2025. At matches, the pair can be often found sitting next to one another in discussion. Ratcliffe has displayed a ruthless business approach since investing in United, but removing Wilcox would be one of the more difficult personal decisions. Their relationship is strong and making a change would be bold. With finances likely to be tight in January, the planning at this stage is for next summer and who is best to navigate it.

If results continue to be substandard, Ratcliffe and Berrada will be forced to consider their options. Wilcox’s bond with the pair is important but Carrick has a lot more credit in the bank with a fanbase that wields power and has strong reservations over the director of football. Removing Wilcox would be the more widely popular decision but also an acceptance of failure from the top brass. Ratcliffe once said Wilcox had the “best eyes in the club” but he cannot be blinded by the truth.