Lisandro Martínez delivered a strong and powerful message to his Manchester United team-mates: if you’re playing terribly, use the director of football as a punchbag and you might become a hero.

It is a popular play in a world in which certain players have become as adept at scapegoat-hunting as man-marking. Passionately speak about what someone else at your football club is doing wrong – particularly the unloved executives – and cast yourself as a whistleblower, selflessly exposing the truth that the long-suffering supporters deserve.

Such internal fights make for great drama, unless your own club is caught in the middle of it.

That’s why in the immediate aftermath of Martínez’s scathing comments about Jason Wilcox following the Champions League defeat to Atlético Madrid, there was a division between those who celebrated the Argentine speaking out and those who felt it was self-serving, a convenient deflection by an out-of-form player in the final year of his contract.

There are many reasons to take issue with Martínez, despite his subsequent apology to ensure he can play this weekend. Firstly, he does not strike me as a credible voice to lead a crusade against Wilcox or anyone else at United.

We talk in football about the importance of “senior players”. Such authority should not be presumed due to age or experience. It comes from stellar service, so whoever elected Martínez the dressing-room spokesman might ask for a recount.

Since he joined United in 2022, the team have finished third, eighth, 15th and third. Owing to his injuries, he has missed 77 of the 158 Premier League games during that period, yet to play more than 27 in a single league campaign.

This is only the second season in which Martínez has featured in the Champions League for United. The team went out in the group stages last time.

In their nine games so far, United have won two and lost four, including an early Carabao Cup exit. Aside from the second half against Ipswich Town on August 30, they have been horrendous, with Martínez a shadow of the player who helped Argentina reach the World Cup final.

Based on such facts and figures, Wilcox would be failing in his job offering Martínez a new deal right now, which raises suspicions about the real agenda behind the outburst.

The more you listen to Martínez’s argument, the less it stands up to scrutiny.

“We did a fantastic season last season and now we expect more from the top,” he said, perpetuating a myth which is doing United more harm than good.

In what world does United sacking a manager, losing to Grimsby in the Carabao Cup and going out early in the FA Cup qualify as “fantastic”?

United finished so high in the Premier League because Liverpool and Chelsea were awful and they could benefit from the lack of European football after being historically bad in 2025. Anyone who seriously believed they came into this season as the third-best team in England, or on the threshold of a title challenge with a couple more additions, is suffering serious delusion symptoms.

Michael Carrick steadied the ship as interim, but it was entirely predictable that a young, inexperienced coach would find it more challenging under the weight of competing in the Premier League and Champions League.

United’s fans are right to hold Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos accountable for that, but I cannot wonder what would happen if board members participated in the same blame game as Martínez for their club’s predicament.

How would United’s players feel if, in the aftermath of finishing 15th in 2025, Ineos had issued a statement saying “we expect more from our expensive, well-paid international footballers”? Would they be applauded for their honesty and courage?

Ratcliffe and Ineos have made it easy to be blamed for United’s current woes. They are more sinners than sinned against. There is no doubting that.

But given Martínez’s remarks focusing on a lack of spending in the last transfer window, there is some irony: when analysing Ineos’s work, their worst football decisions have involved giving too much support to failing managers and making poor recruitment choices, including astronomical fees and contracts for underperforming players.

Martínez joined United in July 2022, during a period of heavy outlay that cost them just less than £1bn over the last four years. They still have the highest net spend in the Premier League of £769.5m in that time.

The club are suffering because there has been no return on that massive investment, which until recently still absorbed the highest wage bill in the top flight. To maintain that position, United had to regularly qualify for the Champions League. Without the prize-winning rewards, the money is not there as it once was, regardless of the size of United’s commercial empire.

Something had to give, and last summer was the first time the tightening of purse strings noticeably impacted the funds available to the manager.

With Ineos in control, United were still the third-highest spenders in the summer 2025 window, behind Arsenal and Liverpool. After finishing 15th they had to act, and did, with Benjamin Sesko, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo added to the forward line, and a much-needed goalkeeping upgrade found in Senne Lammens.

Now Wilcox is being condemned for failing to sign another centre-forward and a deputy left-back – minor issues compared with the more fundamental problems.

Carrick has options. Marcus Rashford can play as a No 9. So can Mbeumo. He has Luke Shaw and Patrick Dorgu who can fill in at left-back. Is it ideal? No, but it’s not ideal for Manchester City to use a midfielder, Matheus Nunes, or centre-back Abdukodir Khusanov at right back. They have no cover for Erling Haaland, with Antoine Semenyo his back-up. They cope. The idea that United’s lack of cover could be responsible for derailing the season is laughable given how much has been spent over the years.

United’s recent outlay is more modest by previous standards. The midfield recruitment has yet to pay dividends. Carlos Baleba and Andrey Santos are young, while Youri Tielemans strikes me as someone at the stage of his career where he should be leaving United with his peak behind him, not joining them.

But the stampede of elephants in the room right now are those Martínez chose to ignore.

United are struggling again because Carrick has not proven himself up to one of the biggest jobs in football, and he has a group of players who do not run. The evidence is there for all to see and it is now mixing a toxic cocktail.

Martínez’s remarks will not age well to those backing him if the commitment of United’s players at Leeds this weekend is questioned as much as it was against Fulham, Spurs and at the start of the Atlético game, when they did not look physically and mentally ready.

Carrick left out to dry by Martinez

Amid my criticism of Martínez for speaking out, it may be pointed out how, as a player, I raised concerns about how Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr ran Liverpool between 2007 and 2010.

My comments were in an autobiography, when I chose to be candid about an ongoing “civil war” between a Champions League-winning manager Rafa Benítez and the hierarchy.

That was in an era when my club faced an existential threat with Liverpool loaded with debt, and a promise broken to put “a spade in the ground within 60 days” to build a new stadium.

As a local player and Liverpool’s vice-captain, failure to address this topic would have been negligent.

If Martínez was speaking about how the Glazers exploited United for their own profit, he would have my backing. You cannot equate my remarks in 2008 with someone throwing an executive under the bus for failing to sign a few players.

The fallout means Carrick, not United’s owners, is under the most extreme pressure in the games before the next international break. The manager has enough to worry about without such unnecessary distractions.

Last month, I wrote in this column that one of Carrick’s main objectives was preventing the circus returning to Old Trafford. Here we are again.

With the team’s form and Martínez’s remarks, it feels like Carrick is already walking a tightrope.