Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt bite back at Lisandro Martinez | OneFootball

Former Manchester United duo Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt have continued their bizarre spat with Lisandro Martinez.

Tough year

Most Manchester United fans would probably agree Lisandro Martinez has been one of the club’s better purchases since joining in 2022.

His fearlessness, strong defending, and ability to pick out a pass are widely appreciated by the Old Trafford faithful. He has struggled to stay fit on occasion, though, and was injured from February last year until making a comeback at the end of November.

Martinez recently revealed how close he came to retiring after his latest injury setback, but has impressed since his return to the team. The Argentine was in sublime form alongside Harry Maguire at the heart of the United defence as they kept just their third clean sheet of the season against a toothless Manchester City.

Spat with United legends

Before the match with Manchester City, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt mocked Martinez’s height and claimed City forward Erling Haaland “would pick Martinez up and run with him. You know when you see a dad at school running down the road with a little toddler.”

Their criticism of Martinez raised eyebrows as before the match, Haaland had only scored against Martinez once in six matches, in October 2022.

Martinez responded to the comments by the former United stars by stating after the match, “honestly, he can say whatever he wants. I told him already, if he wants to say something to me, he can come to me wherever he wants. To my house, wherever. I don’t care.”

He continued, “people always say whatever they want, it’s something that I can’t control. What I can only do is to show on the pitch and I think today I showed it.”

Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes respond

The spat took another twist when, speaking on The Good, The Bad and The Football podcast, Butt defended his comments by stating, “it’s tongue-in-cheek, it’s obvious Haaland isn’t actually going to pick him up and run with him, it’s a figure of speech.”

He added, I think when someone gets so upset about something in the media or a podcast…to come out and say, ‘Come over to my house’, f****** grow up. Literally, if you’re going to get so emotional about someone saying something about you, you shouldn’t be at a big football club because you’ll get that for the rest of your career at Man United.”

He also stated that he got so much abuse at Manchester United and Newcastle United and that there is nothing personal between him and Martinez.

Scholes also added that, “he’s had one brilliant game, but when you start talking and shouting your mouth off, this game has a habit of coming and biting you back on the a***.”

The former midfielder also repeated his view that he does not think United can win a league title with Martinez in the back four.

Source: Sofascore

Feature image Carl Recine via Getty Images

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