Bruno Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez reportedly delivered a furious dressing down to their Manchester United teammates in the dressing room in response to their humbling at the hands of Manchester City.
The Red Devils slumped to a 6-3 humbling at the hands of their neighbours having found themselves 4-0 down at the break following braces from Erling Haaland and Phil Foden. And Fernandes and Martinez took it upon themselves to tell their teammates in no uncertain terms how they were feeling at half-time with a furious rant.
According to The Sun, both players entered the United dressing room and accused their teammates of lacking belief during the game. The pair were reportedly so angry that even members of Pep Guardiola ’s staff outside of the home side dressing room could hear the fall-out taking place.
Red Devils boss Erik Ten Hag was apparently happy for the pair to tear into their teammates as he regularly opens up the floor for players to have their say. It looked as though the pair’s furious rants had worked with Brazilian winger Antony pulling a goal back for the visitors in the second-half with his second goal for the club since arriving from Ajax.
However, both Haaland and Foden completed their hat-tricks as a heavy defeat turned into a mauling. Ten Hag’s men at least earned themselves some credit with Anthony Martial helping himself to two goals to make the scoreline slightly more respectable late on.
Where did Man Utd go wrong against Man City? Share your thoughts in the comments below
Following his angry dressing room tirade, Fernandes continued the criticism of his Red Devils colleagues during a round of post-match interviews. The Portuguese playmaker said: “The attitude and the belief from the beginning was not the best and that caused us many problems and made us concede early goals.
“After, we have to run back the result and the second half was much better. We keep control more, we control the game more. Whenever we have the ball we are more brave.
“We are really disappointed but now it’s time to focus on the next game and understand that we have to get back to the performances that we did before — in the belief and everything, in the togetherness principle — and understand that this cannot get us down.”
Fernandes and Martinez will no doubt be eyeing a response from the Red Devils in midweek as they take on Cypriot outfit Omonia in Europa League action before then travelling to Everton next weekend. Defeat to Man City has left the Red Devils sixth in the current Premier League standings and they now sit nine points behind current league leaders Arsenal.
