Manchester United icon, Wayne Rooney, has slammed defender Lisandro Martinez in response to the Argentine’s outburst following their loss to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday.
Rooney contended that the defender should evaluate his own performances before challenging organizational decisions.
The Argentine player questioned the club’s transfer strategy, asserting that these decisions have impeded their advancement. He expressed concerns that the leadership is not providing adequate support to the players and manager, and he directed criticism toward Manchester United’s Director of Football, Jason Wilcox.
Rooney expressed disapproval of these comments, arguing that the defender has not established sufficient credibility to make such statements. He emphasized that player performances have fallen short of expectations and stated:
He said via the Mirror, “He clearly cares and wants the club to invest more money and more players, and if they do that, I think he’ll be one of the players out of the door if I’m being honest about his performances. His performances haven’t been good enough but I think in some ways he is right, in terms of the club need to invest more at the top end of the pitch and in defence as well.
“I think it looks like that was a bit of an agenda from him because that doesn’t mirror the performance. I thought the performance was better.”
Rooney proceeded to assert that the remarks demonstrated disrespect toward Martinez’s Manchester United teammates and added, “I think it’s a bit disrespectful to his teammates as well because he’s disrespecting his teammates; he’s saying they’re not good enough. I think Bruno is probably the only one who has any right to come out and say something like that, if I’m being honest, as captain. And even then it should be behind closed doors if there are issues, which does happen.
“Players have conversations with the manager, the manager then has a conversation with the board. But that interview there, it’s not going to help the situation the club is in at the minute. Now all that’s going to bring is more noise around it, the players are unhappy, they’re unsettled, they don’t trust in their own teammates, that’s not going to help at all.”