Lisandro Martinez, 28, scored his first Manchester United goal at Old Trafford in Thursday’s 4-0 Champions League victory over Sabah of Azerbaijan.
The Argentinian, 28, overcame another serious injury, this time a cruciate one, to return to play for United last November.
By the time Michael Carrick took over as interim manager in January, the player signed from Ajax in 2022 was back to full fitness and helped Carrick go on a winning run as a first choice central defender alongside Harry Maguire.
A calf injury caused him to miss a further five games from February, then a red card suspension another three in April. After Thursday’s game and ahead of Sunday’s Manchester derby at Old Trafford, Martinez, who started in Argentina's World Cup final loss to Spain, spoke to the media.
How did that feel to get on the score sheet?
I'm happy with the performance and with the clean sheet. I’m a defender, you know, and if I score it’s good, if I don’t score, it doesn’t matter. For me, it’s important to get the three points and winning and playing good football, that’s the most important for me and that’s it.
Do you feel the United team is now in a good place ahead of the Manchester derby on Sunday?
For sure when you win, your confidence is going up, but now we have to be calm, we have to be humble and enjoy tonight, and then tomorrow we have to think about the derby that is really important for us.
United have conceded twice in each Premier League game so far this season. What would you put United’s defensive struggles down to so far this season?
That will always be responsibility for us, but I think against Everton [last Sunday] we played to take the clean sheet and then we conceded the goals and that’s what annoys us. It’s really bad because we want to be there and if we want to compete, we have to keep the clean sheet because it’s very important. But today we did it and we have to build on that.
You've had very good games against City’s Erling Haaland in the past. Do you enjoy that type of battle? Are you ready for it?
Yeah, but that is the past. It’s gone and now we have to be ready for this game because it’s going to be so different than the last one.
Tell us about tonight’s performance of your partner Leny Yoro.
Amazing performance from Leny Yoro. He played so well defensively, with the ball, being calm, being composed in every situation, one-against-one. He’s the future of this club, honestly. And we have to help him.
Lisandro, you’ve been here four years now. How do you assess where the squad is at? And do you think this is the season where we’ll see the team really kick on and start to really challenge at the top?
It’s too early to say that. We just have to be ready every game, we have to be humble, have to enjoy, have to fight every game, and we know what we want, but I can’t tell you.
It’s a quick turnaround to the Manchester derby. Manchester United last year, it tended to be just one game a week, and you’ve got to go every two, three days this season. How much more physically demanding is it going to be on you this season?
This is what we want, playing every three days, playing in all the competitions. This is what we wanted for a long time and now we are ready. We have to recover now and this is the standard that we want as a team.
City played 48 hours ago. Is that a difference-maker on Sunday?
It is what it is, we can’t change it.
