By India Today Sports Desk: Former Liverpool participant Jamie Carragher has apologised to Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez for beforehand saying that the Manchester United participant was too small to play inside the Premier League.
Erik ten Hag reunited with Martinez remaining summer season after starring for him at Ajax, nonetheless many questioned whether or not or not he was the correct match for United sooner than he even took the pitch. Martinez has had a sensational first season in England, having moved from Ajax to watch Erik ten Hag to Old Trafford remaining summer season.
At the time, various pundits had been skeptical of the Argentina participant’s bodily stature and expertise to handle in England. United’s dismal start to the season, which seen them drop to all-time low, didn’t help with the notion that the 25-year-old wasn’t as a lot as customary.
“That’s small for any player on the pitch in some ways now, really,” Carragher said once more in August.
“You think how big and powerful players are. When you think of how that could affect Man Utd set piece-wise, if one of your center-backs is really small, you’re relying so much on the other center-back to deal with things aerially coming into the box, so I think that could be a problem.”
Martinez, no matter a tricky start, has confirmed his naysayers mistaken and has been a giant part of Ten Hag’s crew, serving to the Red Devils win the Carabao Cup, attain the FA Cup final, and switch inside some extent of qualifying for the Champions League. To prime all of it off, he was a member of Argentina’s World Cup-winning squad in December.
Carragher already said he made a mistake alongside along with his remarks about Martinez and equipped an official apology to the participant on Monday, calling him his biggest shock of the season.
“[“Too transient to play inside the Premier League”] that’s not about Lisandro Martinez, that’s about any centre-back coming to the Premier League whose well under six-foot you think is going to have a problem,” Carragher suggested Sky Sports.
“But he hasn’t and every player has weaknesses whatever that may be, whether it’s physically or technically, and the best players hide the weaknesses, nobody’s a perfect player. I just looked at him and thought how can you overcome that in the Premier League?
“I wasn’t the tallest center-back and I used to enter video video games apprehensive that I was going to get found and bullied. At situations you lose huge challenges and aims. I assumed he was two or three inches shorter than me.
“But just like with Casemiro, it’s a massive drop off when Martinez is not in the Manchester United team defensively, but also his ability on the ball and playing out from the back,” Carragher added.