Lisandro Martinez received harsh criticism from Jamie Carragher for his Manchester United rant, which saw the latter forced to clarify his own past comments

Jamie Carragher has explained how his past Liverpool ownership complaints differ from Lisandro Martinez's outburst, which was him "throwing an executive under the bus". The Manchester United defender took aim at the club's director of football, Jason Wilcox, following the defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.

While United fans supported Martinez, he has faced significant criticism from former footballers, with Carragher included in that. After stating that the public criticism was not needed, he was reminded of his own comments about Liverpool's former owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr.

The 48-year-old publicly criticised the two businessmen after failing to deliver on a promise of a new stadium, among other things. And now Carragher has explained very clearly how his comments were very different to Martinez's.

He wrote in his column for The Telegraph: "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 Martinez 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 player."

Martinez, meanwhile, went after club chiefs for failing to bolster the United squad over the summer window, which saw Ayden Heaven forced to play at left-back in place of the injured Luke Shaw.

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He told Amazon Prime Video: "We did a fantastic season last season and now we expect more from the top, more players to compete because many teams bring many players as well. Atletico have an amazing team and they deserved to win today.

"I expect more [investment]. 100%. I expect more from our technical director [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.

"Tonight it is easy to [blame] the coach, easy to say the players but also we have to see other areas." In response to that, Carragher was not blaming the board or Carrick; his damning verdict was aimed solely at Martinez.

He said on CBS Sports: "It doesn't do anybody any good at all, and they will be the story now for the next few days all about this. Every set of supporters don't like the suits or the guys upstairs, so United fans will lap this up and think it's great. I think it's awful that he's come out and said that. And when he's saying 'we had a fantastic season last season', they didn't.

"A manager got sacked last season. Sacked. They finished third because they had no cup games. They got knocked out of the cup competitions very early. The reason they finished third is Liverpool and Chelsea were that bad as well. Now we're seeing the real Manchester United this season. They were awful again [against Atletico].

"And him as well, when he's talking at the start of this season - I think he's a good player, by the way, he's a World Cup winner, I get that - he's had an awful start to the season. Awful. Really poor. And yeah, people are lapping it up, Manchester United fans will. That does nobody any good at all."