Lisandro Martinez was accused of making a ‘wimpish’ and ‘simply appalling’ clearance by Gary Neville during Manchester United’s wild 4-3 defeat to Tottenham on Thursday night.
Spurs are into the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup after an error-strewn game in north London, with both goalkeepers having nights to forget and the Argentina international coming in for criticism.
The Red Devils were already a goal behind thanks to Dominic Solanke when Martinez tried to deal with a cross but could only flick the ball to Dejan Kulusevski.
The Sweden international made no mistake from inside the penalty area, firing past Altay Bayindir to double Tottenham’s lead.
Neville was not impressed with Martinez for the second goal and he also blamed Bayindir for the first as the goalkeeper only parried a long-range Pedro Porro shot into Solanke’s path.
However, it was the Argentine defender who gotthe most stinging criticism, with the man sometimes known as ‘The Butcher’ accused of ‘wimpish’ play.
‘I have to say the clearance from Lisandro Martinez is quite simply appalling. To play that straight to Kulusevski,’ Neville said on Sky Sports.
‘He’s been let down by two poor mistakes, Ruben Amorim. He really has. You can talk about structure, shape, patterns tactics, but if your goalkeeper parries one out into the centre of the box and your centre back flicks one with the outside of his left boot…it’s a wimpish clearance.’
It was a chaotic contest in north London as Spurs looked to be in complete control when Solanke scored again to make it 3-0 after 54 minutes.
However, Tottenham goalkeeper Fraser Forster had a disastrous few minutes and two terrible mistakes with his feet saw Joshua Zirkzee and Amad Diallo bring it back to 3-2 with 20 minutes to play.
It was extremely nervy for the home side then, but Son Heung-min managed to score direct from a corner on 88 minutes, with Bayindir at fault again.
The Manchester United goalkeeper complained about a challenge from Lucas Bergvall, but Neville was not convinced.
‘It’s a mess, I’ve got no sympathy for goalkeepers that get pushed off the ball by defenders,’ said the former Red Devils defender. ‘He’s fuming but I still think he’s got to be stronger.’
The chaos refused to end as Jonny Evans scored a 94th minute third for United and made for an edgy climax, but Tottenham held on to make the semi-finals.
There was bad news for the Red Devils as Victor Lindelof limped out of the contest, suffering yet another injury problem on only his fourth start of the season.
‘It is demoralising. You’ve been in the gyn, worked hard, got back again then you break down in the first half. You just want to get off,’ said Neville.
‘You feel hopeless, like you don’t belong in the changing room. You can see that he’s upset, really upset.’