Bruno Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez tore into their Manchester United teammates during a ‘half-time rant’ in their defeat to Manchester City.
Erik ten Hag’s side delivered a poor performance in the opening 45 minutes which saw City go four goals clear by halftime.
United showed signs of improvement in the second half but it wasn’t enough as Erling Haaland and Foden completed their hat-tricks to seal a comfortable win for Guardiola’s side.
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According to The Sun, Fernandes and Martinez ‘raged at their teammates’ during the break, and the shouts could even be heard along the corridor by the dressing room.
Fernandes was captaining United in Harry Maguire’s absence, while Martinez is reported to have made his feelings clear in the dressing room rant.
‘The attitude and the belief from the beginning was not the best and that caused us many problems and made us concede early goals,’ Fernandes said after the game.
‘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.’
Meanwhile, Erik ten Hag made it clear that he was happy for his United players to criticise each other after the defeat to City.
‘I told the players [they] lack belief, I’ve seen some highlights,’ said Ten Hag.
‘We let them play. We have to criticise each other and I didn’t get the message right to the players, the belief to the pitch, our way of playing. That’s disappointing.’
