The accusation comes from Phil Brown, an NBC Sports journalist. In a thread picked up by The People’s Person on Sunday, he said his source described a dressing room that no longer trusts the people running it.
“Half that Utd team don’t want to be there because they feel like the club don’t want them to be there,” the source told Brown.
“A number of players don’t feel welcome at the club and feel that there is a deliberate targeting of higher paid players to get them to leave,” the quote reads.
The defenders at the centre of the claim
Brown’s source said several defenders “wanted to leave this summer because they have been told they are being replaced in a year and some of those players are down to the last year of their contract.”
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Reporting that followed the thread named the back line the source is pointing to: Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martínez, Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs de Ligt. The same reporting adds the players will not play through knocks for fear of ruining a potential move.
Martínez had already said it on air
Martínez made a public version of the same complaint a week earlier. After a 2-0 Champions League defeat at Atlético Madrid on 13 October, he aimed a post-match Amazon Prime interview squarely at United’s top floor, as ESPN reported.
“I expect more from our technical director,” Martínez said.
“You can’t keep changing, changing, changing the manager. What about other areas?” he added, naming sporting director Jason Wilcox.
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United fined him. On 16 October, the club released his apology.
“Everyone knows that I am a passionate person and that I live football with great intensity. 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,” Martínez said in the statement carried by CaughtOffside.
Fernandes pushing for a January move
The second strand arrived three days later. Turkish outlet Fanatik, picked up by TeamTalk, reported that Bruno Fernandes has grown “tired” of United’s constant rebuild and wants a January exit, with Galatasaray, who had a bid rejected in the summer, named as the destination. The captain has reportedly turned down a new contract offer. United’s own line, per the same reporting, is that no sale is on the table and the club remains determined to keep him.
Head coach Michael Carrick, confirmed in the job permanently earlier this year after an interim spell, called Martínez’s outburst “emotional” rather than a planned attack on the hierarchy.
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose INEOS minority stake has driven the sporting overhaul at Old Trafford, has previously said United had players who were “not good enough” or “overpaid”.
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