Man Utd flop set for Atletico Madrid return to give Carrick false Old Trafford hope
It’s not unusual for footballers to become better players when returning from an injury lay-off. In a literal sense – Gareth Bale came back as an all-conquering beast at Tottenham after a year in the gym – but more often in a figurative way, often through a combination of fan desperation and amnesia.
Manchester United fans will remember how delighted they were to see Lisandro Martinez reinstated to the starting XI last season following a cruciate ligament problem which kept him out for close to a year. He was/is – and we’re paraphrasing here – easily the club’s best centre-back and it’s no wonder the defence had been a mess in his absence.
He and Cristian Romero were described by Gary Neville as “the best, worst centre-back pairing in the world” during the World Cup, in criticism which sums up Martinez’s Old Trafford career insofar as on his day he has few equals but when he’s not he’s a catastrophe waiting to happen.
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He’s aggressive, loves a tackle, reads the game well and can thread passes into midfield. And there was indeed a spell on his return when United fans – entirely reasonably – thought that’s what we’ve been missing.
But this season we’ve seen the other side of Martinez; the side which has those same United fans who eulogised over him when the going was good to tear their hair out and call for his contract to be ripped up at the earliest possible opportunity.
A pathetic clearance against Everton was effectively an assist for their first goal. A blunder against Ipswich led to their second. He scored a ridiculous own goal against Fulham. And on Saturday, having already been bullied once by Dominic Solanke and getting away with it, he again failed to keep tabs on the Tottenham striker while completely ignoring the ball to cost United three points.
After seeing the disasterclass that was Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven as a centre-back pairing in the 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton last month, Michael Carrick will have seen little option but to persist with Martinez through what has been a horrific start to the season for the Argentina international.
But news of an addition to United’s travelling squad for their clash with Atletico Madrid on Tuesday offers hope of some upcoming Martinez respite, for Carrick and the fans who have already started re-writing Matthijs de Ligt’s checkered Red Devils history to insist upon him being the answer to their defensive woes.
He wasn’t bad when playing in the middle of Ruben Amorim’s back three last season before injury ruled him out for the Carrick-led upswing, but was criticised for much of his debut campaign when playing under Erik ten Hag.
The general consensus, as is the case with all United centre-backs, has been that he’s not good enough; he’s certainly looked nothing like the player who broke through at Ajax in that brilliant team with Frenkie de Jong, Hakim Ziyech, Donny van de Beek and Dusan Tadic.
It’s astonishing that Harry Maguire – a man pilloried throughout his time at United, often unfairly – remains their best and most reliable defender at the age of 33 having been signed over seven years ago.
INEOS’ strange transfer strategy of “fixing” one area of the squad per window means the defence is next after the attack in 2025 and the midfield in 2026.
They need wholesale changes because Lisandro Martinez is not and was never the answer, and neither is Matthijs de Ligt.
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