Lisandro Martinez slammed for disrespecting the family with Man Utd perfectly placed

It’s another awkward day for Jamie ‘Prefer To Cheat And Win’ Carragher, as once again his own previous statements undermine his current stance on a simply vast football story.

That’s right, it’s the Lisandro Martinez Story, which is clearly the biggest tale of the season so far. Can’t instantly bring a larger one to mind.

But he and everyone else who thinks Jason Wilcox is not in fact a long-game genius are in for an embarrassing shock.

Marked Butcher
Move over, Manchester City, there’s a new scandal in town. You can keep your decade-long campaign to cheat the entire sport to the tune of almost a billion quid. That’s small fry now.

Because on this crisp autumnal Wednesday morn, we have all awoken to a new world. A world very different to yesterday’s. A world in which Lisandro Martinez has dared to criticise the actual people responsible for the mess Manchester United are in.

Everything else is a footnote.

There’s no denying it was explosive stuff from Martinez, but only because it’s so rare to hear players actually have the balls to take aim at the higher-ups. It’s perhaps no surprise that the last high-profile Premier League example we can recall is Martinez’s equally combative international team-mate and erstwhile Tottenham rabble-rouser Cristian Romero.

The entire outcry over Martinez can be boiled down to a single Marge Simpson quote: “Hmm. That’s true, but he shouldn’t say it.”

Nobody has really taken issue with what Martinez actually said – how could they, frankly? – but rather the fact he’s said anything at all about the delicate and easily-distressed suits who should never face scrutiny or attention for their actions. That’s what the manager is for.

Leading the charge against Martinez came Jamie Carragher, who believes any public criticism of your football club breaks a sacred omerta.

“And this isn’t just me having a go at a Man Utd player. You can’t be having a go at the people above you.”

Brilliant advice, Jamie. Never, ever punch up.

“I think a football club is your family, and there’s a lot of stuff going on inside it.

“I can understand he might not be happy with the squad, or Michael Carrick‘s not, but as a football club and as a family… when you go inside that front door, you put a united front on. You protect each other, and I think a football club is like that.

“I hated it when I was at Liverpool if anybody was speaking out of turn or having a go at the manager, or the manager was having a go at the board. You’re supposed to be as one.

“It might be a bit of an act. But you have to put that act on as families do and as football clubs do.”

Really not sure that Martinez going “maybe sign some midfielders who can run, or try to solve more than one problem position in the same window yeah?” is quite the same as airing the darkest secrets and dirtiest family laundry in public.

But it must in any case have been a different Jamie Carragher who in 2008 stepped outside Liverpool’s front door and said – in his autobiography rather than the white heat of a post-match interview – of the club’s undeniably catastrophic slapstick comedy duo owners Hicks and Gillett:

“For richer or poorer, we’d sold Liverpool to two ruthless businessmen who saw us as a money-making opportunity.

“They didn’t buy Liverpool as an act of charity; they weren’t intent on throwing away all the millions they’d earned over 50 years… They wanted to buy us because the planned stadium offered a chance to generate tons of cash and increase the value of the club.

“Think how many world-class players that £200million could have brought to the club. Instead if Gillett and Hicks did sell, they or their banks would make a huge profit.

“I felt ill thinking about it.”

I’m sorry Jamie, that sounds like having a go at the board. You hate that.

Butcher’s cut
We were going to include this in our ever-popular occasional series of Daily Express Polls That Become News Stories…

Should Man Utd suspend Lisandro Martinez after INEOS rant? Have your say

…but alas sometimes even the malleable and quickly outraged Daily Express audience isn’t quite so easily told what to think as you might expect, with the current poll results showing that 91% of readers don’t think United should suspend a player for having the same opinion of Jason Wilcox as almost everyone else in the world.

So it might not make the cut to become a full-blown news story. Unless, of course, the Express do so via a completely disingenuous headline that says something like ‘Man Utd handed Lisandro Martinez ban verdict after INEOS rant’ but we simply can’t imagine they’d ever do such a thing.

Fergie time
It’s hard to find the positives at Manchester United right now, so hats off to The Sun’s Danny Rust for giving it a go.

MIC DROP: Why Man Utd’s worst start for 40 years could be a GOOD omen as Michael Carrick battles to save job

Does already sound like this is going to be a stretch.

MANCHESTER UNITED have made their worst start to a season for 40 years – but it paid off when they hit rock bottom in 1986.

Keen football historians might already see where this is heading.

Having suffered defeats to Arsenal, West Ham, Charlton and Watford by this stage, the writing was on the wall for boss Ron Atkinson.

He was replaced in the dugout by now-Old Trafford legend Sir Alex Ferguson in November.

Yes, that’s right. All Manchester United have to do now is remove Michael Carrick – the world’s least convincing Big Ron impersonator, we have to say – and simply replace him with a man who will, over the next 25 years, prove himself to be the greatest football manager of all time.

It’s not just Lisandro Martinez who must be feeling embarrassed now to learn that Wilcox, Ratcliffe and co have in fact been playing 4D chess this whole time.

Elland back
Things might still get worse before they get ‘two decades of unprecedented success’ better, though. Because Man United are off to Leeds this weekend. And talking of decades, the Daily Star bring us this claim:

Where do United go from here? They have a tough ask away [at Leeds] at the weekend – who have waited decades to get one over on their bitter rivals.

Yes. Decades they’ve waited to get one over on their bitter rivals. As long as you ignore literally the most recent meeting between the clubs in April this year when Leeds got one over on their bitter rivals with a 2-1 win at Old Trafford.

Mind the gap
It’s not got quite the attention that Manchester United or Spurs have been afforded, but it’s been a bad old start to the season for Fulham. They were already obvious You Fear For Them, You Really Do contenders before a ball was kicked as they embarked nervously on a post-Marco Silva era, and with two draws and no wins from their first six games, they duly find themselves bottom of the league and very much Up Against It.

Alvaro Arbeloa is the only real current rival to Michael Carrick in the Sack Race with even Roberto De Zerbi appearing safe enough for now.

It’s not going well at all, is what we’re saying here. Fair enough. But we do quibble with this from the Daily Express.

As a consequence of results elsewhere, Fulham finished the gameweek bottom of the Premier League table, with a gap already opening up in front of them.

They are one point behind the two teams directly above them at the foot of the table, and two points off 17th and safety. It’s obviously not good, but they’ve hardly been cut adrift.