Lisandro Martinez made his Premier League debut at the weekend.
Despite being lucky to not have a penalty awarded against him, having barged into the back of Danny Welbeck, I thought Martinez played well in his first competitive appearance for Manchester United, even though we lost 2-1 against Brighton.
The former Ajax centre-back didn’t get the start he wanted because the team dropped 3 points, but to single him out for criticism would be harsh when he showed signs of being a very good addition to the team.
Former United defender Wes Brown has come out to defend the Argentine defender against any criticism he received after playing his first league game for the club.
“He played well,” Brown told ManUtd.com. “I was still looking at the size of him, but I like him.
“He’s sharp, he’s in your face, he’s not scared of getting involved and he passed the ball out well. He took up some good positions and for his home Premier League debut, it was not a bad one for him personally, even if it was for the team.
“I think he is quick, he reads the game well and he doesn’t look like he panics when people are running at him with the ball. He was good. I know we got beat, but he was good.”
Sunday’s result put a downer on the start of Ten Hag’s reign – but United have yet to sign his primary target, Frenkie de Jong, who is now being chased by Chelsea.
As a result, he started Scott McTominay and Fred in the middle, only for them to spend the game chasing the ball.
Brown believes United can get back on track.
He added: “The thing with the defence is that we let in two goals. Can we stop this, can we stop letting goals in, can we get three games with clean sheets?
“Confidence-wise, that is one of the biggest things for me. Because you then go into games gearing each other up, telling everyone to do it again, to keep doing it. Even though we didn’t play terribly in defence, we still let in two goals and we’ve got to stop that. It’s a mentality thing. We’ve got to try harder as a team because we let a lot of goals in last season.”
Martinez and co will need to dust themselves off before travelling to Brentford for the next league fixture.
