Manchester United do not have one crisis. They have three. The executive making football decisions is under serious scrutiny, the interim manager looks incapable of dragging the team out of decline, and now an underperforming senior player is publicly attacking the people running the club. Jason Wilcox should go. Michael Carrick should go. Lisandro Martínez should go as well.
Martínez’s extraordinary post-match outburst following the 2-0 Champions League defeat at Atlético Madrid did more than embarrass Manchester United. It ripped open the organisation and showed everyone what years of incoherent decision-making have produced: a dressing room frustrated with recruitment, a manager without authority over the bigger narrative and senior players who no longer believe grievances need to stay behind closed doors.
Strip away the emotion and Martínez made an important point. Manchester United’s squad-building has been completely inadequate for a club pretending it wants to return to Europe’s elite. But being right about one part of the problem does not make Martínez the solution to it.
First, Wilcox. United spent around £155million last summer on Youri Tielemans, Carlos Baleba and Andrey Santos. There is talent in all three. The problem is that United strengthened the same broad area repeatedly while obvious weaknesses elsewhere remained. The club pursued a left-back but failed to land one. Luke Shaw remains the only established senior specialist there and, predictably, he is already unavailable again.
United also failed to provide proper attacking depth. Benjamin Sesko has suffered another injury and there is no convincing alternative specialist striker capable of carrying the burden. Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool all spent more while United somehow managed to spend £155m and still emerge looking unfinished.
This is not simply about one transfer window either. The football hierarchy Wilcox helps lead has spent years lurching from one idea to another. Erik ten Hag received a contract extension and was gone months later. Ruben Amorim’s relationship with the football operation disintegrated. Now United are again operating with an interim manager while debating what comes next. That is not a strategy. It is institutional improvisation.
Second, Carrick. Manchester United have two wins all season, only six points from their first six Premier League matches and are now five games without a victory. The defeat in Madrid contained encouraging passages, but this club has spent far too long treating “encouraging” defeats like evidence of progress.
Martínez did not actually call for Carrick to be dismissed. Quite the opposite: he argued that United cannot keep changing managers and pointed the finger higher up the organisation. On that part, I disagree with him. Wilcox’s failures do not magically make Carrick qualified for one of football’s biggest jobs. Two problems can exist simultaneously.
Third, Martínez himself. You cannot publicly tell the world that the squad is inadequate, criticise the director of football by name and effectively question the competence of the people above the manager, then simply return to Carrington as though nothing happened. Especially when your own performances and availability have hardly placed you beyond criticism.
That is why this interview matters so much. Manchester United now have an underperforming senior player publicly explaining why an underperforming executive has failed to support an underperforming manager. If that does not describe an institution requiring a complete reset, what does?
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Jason Wilcox has run out of excuses
Manchester United supporters should resist the temptation to reduce this entire story to whether Martínez was disrespectful.
That is the easier argument.
The harder question is why a senior player felt sufficiently frustrated to say it publicly.
Martínez did not complain that United refused to sign another £100m superstar for his amusement. He questioned whether the squad had been strengthened sufficiently to compete after what he believed was a promising platform last season.
Others inside the dressing room have reportedly shared concerns about squad depth. Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw had already spoken publicly about the need for reinforcements during the summer.
So there is a football question Wilcox has to answer.
Why did United spend so heavily yet still enter the season with obvious holes?
Why was left-back reinforcement pursued but not completed?
Why is an injury to one striker enough to leave the squad looking short?
Why have rival clubs continued strengthening aggressively while Manchester United appear perpetually one transfer window away from supposedly being ready?
And most importantly: what exactly is the long-term football plan?
Manchester United keep spending enormous money without ever looking like a squad designed by one coherent idea. That is the real indictment of the people running football operations.
Wilcox cannot hide behind the manager forever.
If the squad is wrong, recruitment owns part of that.
If managerial appointments continually fail, the executives selecting those managers own part of that too.
Accountability cannot permanently stop at the dressing-room door.
Carrick being badly supported does not make Carrick good enough
This is where Martínez’s defence of Carrick falls apart.
Yes, Carrick could have been given a better squad.
So could virtually every manager in football.
The question is whether he is maximising the one he actually has.
United’s results say no.
Five games without winning.
The poorest league start in four decades.
Another defeat in Europe.
A side capable of producing respectable passages of football but unable to turn them consistently into victories.
We saw exactly that against Atlético.
United reacted well after conceding inside 53 seconds. They created chances. Baleba and Santos improved the midfield. Mbeumo could have scored. Fernandes hit the woodwork.
Then the match ended 2-0.
Again.
Manchester United have become experts at discovering positives inside negative results.
Enough.
Carrick does not become an elite Manchester United manager simply because Jason Wilcox failed to construct an elite Manchester United squad.
United made this mistake with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
A popular former player stabilised the club. The atmosphere improved. Good results followed. Familiarity gradually became mistaken for proof that United had found the long-term answer.
Years disappeared.
United cannot do it again.
Carrick was useful as a bridge.
Use the bridge.
Then get off it.
Martínez told some uncomfortable truths — and still crossed the line
This is the complicated part.
Martínez is substantially right that Manchester United should examine more than the manager whenever results collapse.
For years the club has changed coaches while deeper problems survived every sacking.
David Moyes went.
Louis van Gaal went.
José Mourinho went.
Solskjaer went.
Ten Hag went.
Amorim went.
And somehow Manchester United kept discovering entirely new versions of dysfunction.
Clearly the manager has never been the only problem.
Martínez deserves credit for saying that openly.
But the manner matters.
A senior player walking out after defeat and naming the director of football publicly creates another problem at precisely the moment a fractured club needs unity.
Wayne Rooney called the comments disrespectful to Martínez’s team-mates, and there is logic to that criticism.
If you say United failed to assemble a sufficiently strong squad, what are the younger players hearing?
That they are not good enough?
That the hierarchy failed because it signed them rather than somebody better?
That defeat is partly explained by the players who are not there?
Those conversations belong inside the club.
Especially when your own performances are not untouchable.
Martínez cannot demand elite standards without meeting them himself
Martínez has unquestionably had good periods at Manchester United.
His aggression, passing and personality made him enormously popular after arriving from Ajax, and being part of Argentina’s World Cup-winning squad understandably elevated his standing.
But the subsequent years have been disrupted repeatedly by injury.
He has not provided the consistent availability United needed from such an important defender.
His form has also been questioned this season.
He struggled against Dominic Solanke for Tottenham’s late equaliser immediately before the Atlético match.
His contract situation adds another layer. His current deal approaches its conclusion and there has been uncertainty over his long-term future.
None of that invalidates his criticism of Wilcox.
But it destroys any suggestion that Martínez occupies some moral high ground from which everyone else can be judged.
You cannot demand ruthless accountability from Manchester United while expecting your own contribution to escape the same examination.
If United genuinely want to reset their standards, that principle has to apply to everyone.
Executives.
Managers.
Players.
No sacred cows.
Rooney is wrong about one thing: punishing Martínez is not enough
The obvious institutional response is to fine Martínez.
United may well do that.
Then everybody congratulates themselves for restoring discipline and moves on.
That would completely miss the point.
Punishing Martínez without confronting what produced the interview would be Manchester United management in miniature: deal with the visible explosion while leaving the gas leak untouched.
The player should face consequences.
But so should the executive structure.
And so should Carrick if the results continue showing he is not capable of delivering what Manchester United require.
United’s hierarchy cannot demand standards from Martínez while accepting mediocrity everywhere else.
Discipline without competence changes nothing.
This is no longer a rebuild — it is a cycle of failure
Consider how ridiculous the pattern has become.
A manager arrives.
The club talks about patience.
Transfers are made.
Obvious squad holes remain.
Results decline.
Briefings begin.
Players become frustrated.
The manager takes the blame.
A new manager arrives.
Then the entire conversation starts again.
Manchester United call it rebuilding.
It is not rebuilding if you repeatedly demolish the same house.
The club needs to decide what football it wants to play, recruit an elite manager capable of delivering it, hire executives whose transfer strategy matches that football and remove players who do not fit either the tactical requirements or behavioural standards.
That sounds basic because it is basic.
The astonishing thing is that one of the richest football clubs on earth has spent more than a decade making it look impossibly complicated.
A complete reset means uncomfortable decisions
Removing Wilcox would be disruptive.
Replacing Carrick now would create another managerial transition.
Moving Martínez on would mean losing an experienced defender and strong dressing-room personality.
Good.
A genuine reset is disruptive.
Manchester United’s obsession with avoiding short-term disruption has produced years of long-term chaos.
Wilcox should be judged on recruitment, managerial planning and the coherence of the sporting structure.
Carrick should be judged on performances and results.
Martínez should be judged on performances, availability and whether publicly attacking club leadership is compatible with the culture United want.
On the evidence currently available, all three questions produce uncomfortable answers.
That does not make any of them bad people.
It means Manchester United need better outcomes.
Martínez accidentally gave United the blueprint
There was one particularly important element in Martínez’s comments.
He asked why people always look towards the manager when things go wrong.
He is right.
Manchester United should stop changing one component and pretending they have repaired the machine.
This time, go further.
Change the sporting leadership if it is failing.
Change the manager if he is not elite enough.
Change senior players whose performances or conduct no longer justify keeping them.
Then build one structure where recruitment, coaching and squad standards actually point in the same direction.
That is what serious clubs do.
Lisandro Martínez wanted Manchester United to stop pretending the manager was their only problem. He was right. The uncomfortable consequence is that once United examine everything properly, Martínez himself should be part of the clear-out.
Wilcox out.
Carrick out.
Martínez out.
Not because one defeat at Atlético Madrid demands hysteria.
Because the interview after that defeat exposed something far bigger.
Manchester United’s executive structure does not inspire confidence.
Their interim manager does not inspire confidence.
Their dressing room no longer looks controlled.
And another season is already beginning to slip away.
There is still time to save it.
But tinkering will not save Manchester United anymore.
The club does not need another scapegoat. It needs a purge of failure — from the boardroom, through the dugout, and into the dressing room.
This article is an opinion and analysis piece. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views or official position of BettingTips4You.com or BSpin Limited.
