Peter Schmeichel reveals what happened just before Lisandro Martinez interview as 'little bit clumsy' claim made

Peter Schmeichel has admitted his interview with Lisandro Martinez after Manchester United's 2-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid came across as 'a little bit clumsy' - and has explained one of the reasons why.

Schmeichel spoke to United centre-back Martinez for CBS Sports, shortly after the Argentinian had publicly criticised the club's board and technical director Jason Wilcox for their lack of summer investment in the squad during an interview with Amazon Prime's Gabriel Clarke.

The former United goalkeeper's interview style received a mixed reception from viewers, with some claiming he didn't allow Martinez the same space to speak his mind as Amazon Prime reporter Clarke. Now, in a new episode of The Overlap Daily, Schmeichel has attempted to clear up some of the confusion behind what went on inside the Wanda Metropolitano.

'I had no clue...' - Peter Schmeichel addresses Lisandro Martinez rant

"It's a little bit of a weird one," he told co-host Joe Hart on The Overlap Daily podcast. "When you do the job that I do in the Champions League... I'm a reporter. That's the job I have. I do a couple of things to camera from the touchline, and I'm talking about the atmosphere and anything that I've heard.

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"Afterwards, I go to the flash zone and I do interviews. When you're building relationships with media people from the different clubs, you can say, 'I want to speak to him, or him'. But at the end of the day, they are not solely in charge of who you speak to. UEFA also have media people. There's always one responsible for every team, then one above them, and everything has to go through them.

"When this happened, I'm actually next to Gabriel. In that interview was where everything came out. I know he [Martinez] is there. But he's not on my list. I'm not interviewing him at all. I've asked for somebody else, right?

"This interview finishes, and they push him [Martinez] into mine. So when you look at the interview, I'm a little bit surprised. At this time, I don't even know what he said.

"Then he carries on from that interview, where I don't know he's saying. Because he's talking to a former pro, I think he's saying that we, as players, we should do a lot better. I had no clue he was on the attack as he was. So in my interview, I didn't get that. I didn't understand he was saying that. So in a way, my interview became a little bit clumsy, a little bit crazy."

How Man Utd have reacted to Lisandro Martinez interview

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Martinez's comments do not appear to have gone down well with the club's hierarchy, given United's football department includes the heavily divisive minority co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

According to BBC Sport, the Argentinian has been fined for his comments. He issued an apology on Instagram, stating that 'the frustration of the defeat led me to express how I felt at a time and place that perhaps were not the right ones' - though notably did not explicitly apologise for the comments in general.

In his pre-match press conference ahead of United's away clash against fierce rivals Leeds this weekend, head coach Michael Carrick said that Martinez realised he had made a 'mistake'.

"The squad today was in a fantastic place - better than I have seen it for a while," he said. "That is it, plain and simple. We are living it every day and know what it feels like.

"We are emotional and care a lot. Sometimes someone says something that maybe you shouldn't say at that certain time, but it doesn't distract us from what we are creating here and the environment and spirit within the group.

"It [the squad] is not affected, I am telling you."