📅 November 2, 2026
Martinez’s 83 Seconds: Has He Played His Last Big Game for United?
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One minute and 23 seconds. That’s how long it took Lisandro Martínez to commit the two fouls that lost Manchester United the game at Chelsea, by the BBC’s count. The question being asked across the pundit shows this weekend is whether those 83 seconds were his last meaningful act as a United player.
Joe Cole thinks so. “I think Martínez’s time at the club has run its course,” he said on TNT Sports. We agree.
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The 83 seconds
With United 1-0 down, Martínez was booked on 59 minutes for pulling back Morgan Rogers, as ESPN’s match data and 101 Great Goals record. Then, at the next Chelsea corner, he went into Wesley Fofana. BBC Sport’s Simon Stone describes it: Martínez, “already on a booking”, raised his elbow and caught Fofana in the face.
VAR James Bell sent referee Peter Bankes to the screen, as the BBC reports. Bankes gave the penalty and a second yellow, and Cole Palmer scored it. Game over at 2-0 down with ten men, as we wrote in our match report.
“Inexplicable”
Darren Cann, who ran the line at a World Cup final, gave BBC Sport a referee’s verdict, and it doesn’t leave Martínez anywhere to hide. “He jumped into him, making no attempt to play the ball and not even looking at the ball as it came in from the corner,” Cann said. “Martínez was rightly sent off for two bookable offences, as well as conceding a needless penalty.”
The pundits went further. “The sending-off is absolutely ridiculous,” Danny Murphy said on BBC Radio 5 Live. “You can’t have a liability in your team.” Cole, on TNT: “In a Man Utd shirt, he’s just at the scene of the crime too often.”
Michael Carrick didn’t defend him. “I’ve not seen it back, so I don’t know if it was or not,” he said, but he was clear on the effect: “The second goal and losing a man at that stage had a big influence on it, for sure.”
The moment nobody talked about
Stephen Warnock picked up something on Match of the Day. As Martínez walked off, it was Amad, one of the younger players, who went to him. “No senior members of the Manchester United team going over to talk to him,” Warnock said, as SPORTbible reported. Britbrief reported that Carrick didn’t acknowledge him either.
That tells you where he stands in that dressing room right now.
The record
This is Martínez’s second Premier League red card of 2026, after the one at Leeds in April, as The Analyst notes. Earlier this month, after the defeat in Madrid, he went public about the club, telling Amazon Prime he expected “more from our technical director”. He’s banned for Aston Villa at home next Sunday. Sky Sports reported in October that he’s in the final year of his contract.
Put that together and the picture is clear: a senior defender with a temper, a contract running down, a public row with the people above him, and now a red card that cost his manager a game he couldn’t afford to lose.
Our view
Martínez has given United some good moments, and nobody doubts he cares. But caring isn’t the same as being reliable, and at a club fighting to stay out of the bottom three, reliability is all that matters. Cole is right: it has run its course.
United have to find another partner for Harry Maguire at Villa anyway, with Matthijs de Ligt and Ayden Heaven the options. They should look to move Martínez on in January. A defender who can’t keep his arms down on a yellow card can’t be trusted in a relegation fight.
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Sources: “One minute and 23 seconds”, the elbow, VAR James Bell, and the quotes from Darren Cann, Danny Murphy (BBC Radio 5 Live), Joe Cole (TNT Sports), Stephen Warnock and Michael Carrick from BBC Sport (Simon Stone) via Yahoo Sports, 31 October. Cole’s “run its course” also from SPORTbible, which is the source for Warnock’s Match of the Day comment about Amad. Carrick not acknowledging Martínez from Britbrief alone, so it’s attributed. The first booking from ESPN’s match data and 101 Great Goals. The Leeds red card from The Analyst and our match records. The Madrid interview and Sky’s contract report from our earlier coverage; the contract detail is Sky’s alone. Our view is our own.