United Fines Martinez After He Named Jason Wilcox

Lisandro Martinez apologised on Thursday after Manchester United fined him for calling out director of football Jason Wilcox. The Argentina centre-back had spent Tuesday night telling two television crews that the squad was short, the summer window was not enough, and the man above the manager had to do more.

On Friday, Michael Carrick told his news conference the case was closed and Martinez was in the squad for Sunday’s trip to Leeds. United sit 13th in the Premier League with six points from six games, their worst league start in 40 years. Wilcox has not spoken.

The Club Calls the Matter Closed

Martinez sat down after Thursday training at Carrington with Carrick, Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada. A club source said any internal punishment would stay private, that the public apology was Martinez’s choice, and that all sides now treated the episode as finished. People briefed on the talks said the club had fined him. The amount has not been disclosed.

The Instagram post was his second in two days. On Wednesday night he had explained himself without saying sorry, writing that he had spoken “out of anger and frustration” and still wanted the club “competing for the biggest honours.” Thursday’s version was the one the club needed on file.

THE 72 HOURS AFTER MADRID

1. Tuesday, 13 October 2026: After a 2-0 loss at Atletico Madrid, Martinez tells Amazon Prime and then CBS Sports that United need more players and that he expects more from “our technical director.”
2. Wednesday, 14 October 2026: He posts a long Instagram note that defends the feeling behind the interview and stops short of an apology.
3. Thursday, 15 October 2026: He meets Carrick and club executives, is fined, and posts a second statement apologising for the time and place of his comments.
4. Friday, 16 October 2026: Carrick says Martinez is in the Leeds squad and that the group has “moved on.”

Carrick’s phrasing on Friday was careful. He said the club asks for fire and for players who care, “but there is a way of doing that, which has been acknowledged.” He added that Martinez had called the interview a mistake, that there was “no drama,” and that the defender would be available at Elland Road.

🚨🗣 Michael Carrick on Lisandro Martinez:

'He acknowledged that it was a mistake by him and that was it. There is a feeling in the group that we really want to do something about this situation and do it quickly. We really have moved on. He (Martinez) is in the squad.'

— RealRedsTalk (RRT) (@RealRedsTalk1) October 16, 2026

What Martinez Said After Atletico Madrid

United’s 2-0 Champions League defeat in Madrid was already a bad night before the cameras found Martinez. Pablo Barrios scored after 47 seconds. Leny Yoro was sent off around the 74th minute after an on-field review. Ademola Lookman made it 2-0 in the 79th. There were 69,493 at the Metropolitano, including Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Wilcox and Berrada in the directors’ box. Ayden Heaven, 20, started at left-back.

Martinez did not wander into the subject. Peter Schmeichel, working the CBS interview, tried four times to steer him off the summer window. Martinez came back each time.

I’m not going to close my mouth. We need more ambition. If we don’t say the truth, nothing will change.

Lisandro Martinez, Manchester United defender, to CBS Sports

On Prime he had already said the performance was “really poor,” that the night was “the mirror, for our club at the moment,” and that last season’s third-place finish was not a base you could freeze. Asked if United needed more investment, he said: “Yes, 100 per cent. I expect more from our technical director, I have to be honest.” He was asked if Carrick had been backed. “I don’t think so.” Then he looked up. “Changing, changing, changing manager? What about other areas?”

He also said the squad was not “the best squad at the moment compared with other top teams,” that belief and energy were missing, and that body language turned “negative” after missed chances. Youri Tielemans, asked about the interview on the same broadcast, said he had “no comment.” Wayne Rooney, in the Prime studio, said Martinez had gone “too far” and that it “should really stay internal,” even as he accepted the club still needed bodies at both ends of the pitch. Roy Keane, on The Overlap, called the situation “a bit of a circus.”

The Thursday apology was aimed at the setting, not the substance. “The frustration of the defeat led me to express how I felt at a time and place that perhaps were not the right ones, and for that I want to apologise,” Martinez wrote. He added that United are “at their best when we are all united” and that his words “did not help with that.” He did not withdraw the claim that the squad was short.

Wilcox Is Going Nowhere

Jason Wilcox, 55, joined as technical director in April 2024 after nine months in the same job at Southampton, and was promoted to director of football in June 2025 when Dan Ashworth left. People at the club said this week he is not in danger of losing the role. Dressing-room sources had already told reporters during the summer that the club needed more than the three midfielders who arrived, and that left-back and striker were “fairly obvious” holes.

Wilcox does not do the round of independent interviews that football directors on the continent treat as part of the job. His only long sit-down since 2024 was with United’s in-house station. “I am a coach at heart,” he said then. “That is a strength in my role, but it also causes me a bit of a problem because I always want to interfere in what the managers are doing.” After a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace last November he told reporters to “trust the process.” He has not had to answer Martinez in public, and there is no sign he will.

That silence is now doing as much work as the fine. A player in the last year of his deal was put on camera to recant. The executive he named kept the job, kept the January shortlist, and kept his practice of not explaining the window. If the point of Thursday was unity, it was unity on the club’s terms: the dressing room can feel the gaps, it just cannot say them into a microphone.

United Spent £155m and Still Lacked a Striker

United’s own figure for the summer is about £155m on four senior additions: Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos, Tielemans and goalkeeper Karl Darlow. Baleba cost £65m, with £5m in add-ons, from Brighton. Santos cost £48m, with £2m in add-ons, from Chelsea. Tielemans cost £35m from Aston Villa. Darlow arrived on a free from Leeds. The guaranteed transfer fees on the three midfielders come to £148m, which is real money, and still left Carrick with one natural left-back, Luke Shaw, and one natural striker, Benjamin Sesko.

Both of those players have already been missing. Sesko is out for an indefinite period after a recurrence of the shin problem that flared in May and kept him out of pre-season. Shaw has missed matches too. The recruitment group is now working January targets, and people at the club have accepted that skipping cover in those two spots was a flawed plan.

UNITED’S SUMMER 2026 ARRIVALS

Heaven’s start in Madrid was the picture of the left-back problem. Baleba looking lively for an hour was the best argument Wilcox has for the midfield spend. Santos watching the last three league games from the bench is the counter. Tielemans was a replacement after a move for Atalanta’s Ederson collapsed on medical grounds, and he has not yet looked like the player Unai Emery used at Villa.

Wilcox can point to last summer, when Matheus Cunha (£62.5m), Bryan Mbeumo (£65m plus add-ons), Sesko (£66.4m plus add-ons) and Lammens (£18.2m plus add-ons) were widely judged a better window, and Lammens was later named the league’s transfer of the season. That is a fair record to put on the table. It does not cover a 2026 squad that went to the Metropolitano without a fit specialist left-back or a fit centre-forward.

Ten Months After Amorim Said the Same Thing

Wilcox has been here before. Almost 10 months ago, Ruben Amorim used a post-match news conference at Leeds to tell the club that “every department, the scouting department, the sporting director, needs to do theirs,” after Wilcox had quietly advised a tactical change for a game against Wolves. Amorim was sacked within 24 hours. The executive stayed.

Carrick, appointed as interim in January and then given the job through at least 2028, is the third manager in three seasons to be sold as the answer after a summer of backing. Erik ten Hag went after nine league games in 2024. Amorim went after 20 last season. Carrick dragged United to third last term and a Champions League return, then opened this season with six points from six. The pattern Martinez named was not a slip of the tongue. It was the last three years in one sentence.

Jamie Carragher argued on Friday that the outburst was really about a contract, that a director of football should be allowed to question Martinez’s own form in public if the player can question him, and that other clubs do not pack a spare for every star. The first of those points is at least live. Martinez’s deal runs to June 2027. United hold an option through June 2028. He is 28, is not among the club’s top earners, and has wanted improved terms since the 2022 World Cup without talks ever landing. People close to him say he does not want the option triggered and would prefer Spain if he left. United also have doubts about using it. Those same people say he would have given the interview with five years left on his contract, and that it was not a bid to force an exit.

The contract reading is a motive. It is not a rebuttal of the teamsheet. Other players, according to people in the dressing room, share the frustration with how the club is run, even if at least one teammate confronted Martinez over the way he said it. Alex Crook reported that several seniors had been waiting for a moment. The apology will not end that argument, because Shaw’s deputy and Sesko’s deputy still do not exist.

Martinez Is in the Squad for Leeds

Carrick takes United to Elland Road on Sunday at 14:00 BST. Leeds sit seventh. United have one win, three draws and two defeats in the league, nine goals scored and nine conceded, and no clean sheet. The only league win was 5-2 against Ipswich on 30 August. The only other win in nine matches in all competitions was 4-0 against Sabah on 10 September. Brighton knocked them out of the League Cup 3-2. The 1-1 draw with 10-man Tottenham on 10 October left them on six points, matching nothing United have posted after six league games since 1986-87, when they had four.

THE START CARRICK TAKES TO LEEDS

• League place: 13th after six games, six points, goal difference zero.
• Wins this season: two in nine matches, Ipswich in the league and Sabah in Europe.
• The last league win: 30 August, which means five weeks without a Premier League victory heading to Elland Road.
• Selection: Martinez is in the squad; Carrick would not say on Friday whether he starts.

Carrick has spent the week asking for the group to “galvanise” around the Leeds fixture. He said after Madrid that “now is the time to be together and work through,” and that he had not seen the interview in the tunnel. By Friday he had seen it, heard the apology, and chosen the version of events in which a passionate player made a mistake and the file is shut.

Martinez will almost certainly play some part at Leeds if he is fit, because United do not have a surplus of centre-backs who can defend on the front foot. Wilcox will almost certainly not be asked a question he has to answer. The league table will still be the table. Sunday does not close a window that left Carrick with Heaven at left-back in Madrid and no striker on the grass.