Lisandro Martínez has launched a public attack on Manchester United’s hierarchy, singling out the club’s director of football, Jason Wilcox, in the wake of a 2-0 defeat at Atlético Madrid. The defender’s intervention has exposed divisions at Old Trafford and added to the scrutiny on a struggling campaign.
“We don’t have the best squad at the moment compared with other top teams,” Martínez said. “I expect more [investment], 100%. I expect more from our technical director.” He described the Atlético performance as “really poor”, adding: “I have to control myself a lot but something is a reflection of the mirror of how our club is at the moment.”
The club’s summer recruitment is understood to have caused bemusement inside the dressing room, with the decision to target three midfielders — Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans and Carlos Baleba — leaving players wondering why no other areas of the squad were strengthened. The need looks especially acute in defence, where the back four of Diogo Dalot, Martínez, Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw has been together since 2022.
Martínez’s own future is uncertain: he is out of contract next summer and it is thought the 28-year-old may not be offered a new deal, nor have his one-year option triggered. Teammates are conscious that his outburst also stems from an expectation that he will leave.
As director of football, the 55-year-old Wilcox holds near-unilateral power over football decisions, with only Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who controls sporting policy, above him. That makes the last transfer window his responsibility, and the episode is the latest in a line of missteps on his record.
When Dan Ashworth, Wilcox’s predecessor, was on gardening leave from Newcastle in the first half of 2024, Wilcox interviewed potential replacements for Erik ten Hag before deciding the head coach should stay. The Dutchman signed a fresh contract but was sacked that autumn. Wilcox then had a major fallout with the man he hired as Ten Hag’s successor, Ruben Amorim, which ended with the Portuguese saying the director of football had told him to change his favoured 3-4-3 shape. “I came here to be the manager of Manchester United – not to be the coach of Manchester United,” Amorim said after a 1-1 draw at Leeds on 4 January; he was sacked the next day. Wilcox had previously worked with United’s chief executive, Omar Berrada, at Manchester City, where Berrada rose to chief operations officer and Wilcox to academy director. Wilcox became Southampton’s director of football from summer 2023 until April 2024, when he joined United after being identified by Berrada — a background that invites scrutiny over his experience at elite level.
Michael Carrick’s ability to prosper is tied to the quality of Wilcox’s work in the market, so he cannot be held solely responsible for a grim return of six points from six league games and only two victories in all competitions this season. Carrick did lead United to third last term after taking over in January with 17 league games remaining, the side having already been eliminated from the other competitions. Yet his role demands he get the best from his resources, and there is scant excuse for United’s disjointedness, their inferior running statistics and their failure to take advantage twice against 10 men — the 1-0 loss to City and Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Tottenham.
His players, publicly at least, remain behind him. “We believe in the manager, we believe in the whole staff, we believe in [ourselves as] players,” said Santos after the Atlético defeat. “We are in a bad moment but we have to work to change this result.” The sense of a club unravelling was reinforced by Amad Diallo, who posted on Snapchat after the Atlético loss to call events a “disgrace” and say he had no words — though it was unclear whether he was referring to the performance, Martínez’s diatribe, the squad his teammate had described as not good enough, or something else.
On the pitch, the numbers underline the problem. United’s 671.4 total kilometres run in the Premier League is the fifth-lowest in the division, against Arsenal’s league-leading 716.2, while their 581 sprints are the fourth-lowest, compared with Brentford’s 765.
Wilcox can point to the constraints imposed by the Glazers. The six American siblings remain majority owners, and their family has placed £1.1bn-plus of debt on the club, severely restricting the transfer budget. Wilcox oversaw a £155m summer outlay and a net spend of about £100m, while City’s corresponding figures were £457.5m and about £175m. City’s spending, aided by being far better sellers of talent, brought in players such as Enzo Fernández for a British record-equalling £125m, Elliot Anderson for £115m, Ayyoub Bouaddi for £81m and Iliman Ndiaye for £65m — though their financial advantage has been thrown into sharp focus by last month’s verdict that they have serially cheated.
If there is encouragement, it lies in the first 97 minutes of Baleba’s United career. After coming on in the 59th minute against Spurs, a neat swivel and deft chip to Bruno Fernandes stood out on an impressive debut, and at Atlético the 22-year-old pressed opponents and crunched into tackles, suggesting a game built on energy, muscularity and skill. It is very early, but had Baleba been fit for the start of the campaign — he was recovering from an ankle problem — he might have changed one or more of the defeat at Hull, the 2-2 draw at Everton in which Ainsley Maitland-Niles equalised late, the 1-0 loss to City in which Phil Foden was sent off after 23 minutes, or the Carabao Cup elimination by Brighton.