Former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel believes Lisandro Martinez’s criticism of the club’s hierarchy is “not that far off” but admitted he would not have liked hearing a team-mate sound off in public.

Schmeichel was among those to interview Martinez in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s 2-0 Champions League loss to Atletico Madrid, when the Argentina defender turned his fire on the club’s leadership and named director of football Jason Wilcox as one of those from whom he “expects more”.

Martinez spoke first to Amazon Prime’s Gabriel Clarke before Schmeichel interviewed him for CBS, with the defender repeating many of his criticisms as he said: “I’m not going to close my mouth, we need more ambition.”

On Thursday, Martinez issued a public apology for his comments and United said the matter was considered closed after the 28-year-old met with manager Michael Carrick, Wilcox and the club’s hierarchy.

But inevitably the issue dominated Carrick’s press conference on Friday with the substance of Martinez’s comments still being debated.

Speaking on The Overlap Daily, Schmeichel said: “I would not like any team-mate ever to go out and talk like that. Unless it was Bryan Robson… no, I wouldn’t. I absolutely wouldn’t like that.

“In the dressing rooms I was in, you were accountable. It just didn’t happen very often that somebody stepped out of line, and of course we had a manager (Sir Alex Ferguson) who would not allow you to step out of line. He would react to that straight away…

“It’s not that I completely disagree with what (Martinez) says. That’s the other thing.”

Schmeichel then added: “Without going into too much detail about what Martinez said, some of the things he said are not far off.

“Look at the promising teams: Manchester City a long time ago, Arsenal for the past six years, Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp – what did they do that suddenly changed the dynamics and changed their fortunes? They started at the back.

“They got in a goalkeeper, back four, a centre midfield player. They built that foundation, made it solid, and then they started to bring the creative players in. They’ve all done it…built from the back. We’ve done the opposite, built from the front.”

PA