In the tit-for-tat exchange between Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez and two of the club’s most famous recent players, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes have had their say.
On the same ‘The Good, The Bad, The Football’ podcast where they upset Martinez with their mickey-taking before the Manchester derby, the pair praised the Argentina defender for his performance in the 2-0 win against Manchester City at Old Trafford, but questioned his rationale for responding to what they said.
“Fair play to him,” said Butt. “He has gone man-to-man with the best centre forward in the world. So, we come on here and say, ‘well done’. Brilliant. He has done really well.
“I just think when someone gets so upset about something on a podcast, or in the media, to come out and say, ‘they can say what they want’ and ‘come to my house’ – grow up.
“If you are going to get so emotional about someone saying something about you and react like that, you shouldn’t be at a big football club.”
Before the game, Butt and Scholes had joked with host Paddy McGuiness that Haaland would pick 5ft 7in Martinez up at Old Trafford and run with him.
In the aftermath of the victory, Martinez said: “Everyone can talk on the television, but when you see [them] here face to face, no-one says anything.”
The argument is a snapshot of a complicated relationship United have with their famed ‘Class of 92’.
Between them, Ryan Giggs, Scholes, David Beckham, Butt and the Neville brothers, Gary and Phil, made 3,448 appearances for the club. They were the foundation for the second great team Sir Alex Ferguson built that became the first in England to win the Treble in 1999.
Giggs became interim manager for four games following the dismissal of David Moyes in 2014. He had previously been a coach and then became assistant manager to Louis Van Gaal. Butt, Scholes and Phil Neville all coached under Giggs.
Butt worked as a youth coach before that and was appointed United’s head of academy in 2016 before leaving in 2021. There are few more qualified to talk about United’s DNA of bringing young players through.
It is a part of the club he cares passionately about. On 15 December, he turned out with United officials on a rainy night in Moss Side to coach a group of underprivileged children on behalf of Sir Bobby Charlton’s Foundation even though his old club were playing Bournemouth in the Premier League a couple of hours later.
Butt previously objected strongly to an observation from a United official that youth development is about more than simply winning. More recently, he claimed the club was threatening to cancel his season tickets.
Three days before Butt’s Foundation appearance, Gary Neville had been at Old Trafford as United announced they had agreed to become a campus for the UA92 University, which was founded by the Class of 92 in 2019.
It is clear the bond still exists but their opinions on United are eagerly sought, especially the negative ones.
In October, Giggs sat inside Old Trafford as a speaker at the Training Ground Guru conference and lamented Ruben Amorim’s preference for playing wider players on the opposite side of the pitch to their strongest foot.
All are regular speakers on matchdays at Hotel Football, the hotel they part-own and is located barely 50 yards from Old Trafford.
In the past, the hotel itself was the subject of tension. United tried to stop its construction, although the club do use it themselves on occasion now.
Then there is Neville, who either as a commentator or pundit on Sky’s football coverage – or the hugely successful ‘Stick to Football’ podcast – is rarely short of an opinion.
In the news conference at Elland Road that triggered his dismissal, former United head coach Ruben Amorim cited Neville as someone senior figures within the club paid too much attention to.
That is a debatable point. Yet, unlike former skipper Roy Keane, whose criticisms of new boss Michael Carrick had been pointed and personal, Neville was trusted by United to talk to his former team-mate on camera in the Old Trafford tunnel before the derby.
Launching his UA92 Old Trafford campus venture, Neville offered this to BBC Sport on the theory the Class of 92 and United do not get on.
“That’s a theory,” he said. “There’s no doubt a few years ago there were maybe some causes for concern but that’s been smoothed over.
“I don’t think there’s any issues whatsoever now,” adding that Class of 92 are “desperate for the club to succeed” and “disappointed and frustrated” when they lose.
United’s chief operating officer Collette Roche was of a similar view.
“A lot of our ex-players are in media and obviously are going to have opinions around the football team,” she said. “That’s fine.
“But the class of 92 are part of our family and therefore the relationship we’ve got with UA92 goes far deeper than the latest headline or podcast.”
Which is fine if, as Scholes and Butt suggest, the players ignore it.
The problem is, as Martinez showed, they don’t.
“We exchanged messages on Instagram quite some time ago because he wasn’t happy with something I said,” Scholes said.
“I can’t remember what it was, but he said he had lost all respect for me.
“I sent him my phone number, but I have never heard anything from him.”
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