Martínez has drawn back the curtain on Manchester United’s ruinous ownership | Jonathan Liew

Defender may not be blameless in team’s struggles but his criticism goes to the heart of what has gone wrong at the club

Heartbreaking: the worst defender you know just made a great point. And no, nobody would describe Lisandro Martínez as the ideal person to scrutinise Manchester United’s indifferent start to the season, given that his high-profile defensive 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 night, dressed in a hot dog costume and throwing his arms out in mock innocence.

For those with no interest in engaging with what Martínez actually 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 real cardinal sin here, 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.

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