Rooney blasts ‘selfish’ Manchester United players after Como collapse

Club legend warns public blame game risks tearing dressing room apart

Wayne Rooney has lambasted Manchester United’s squad for behaving like “babies” and urged captain Bruno Fernandes and defender Lisandro Martinez to “look in the mirror” after the club’s latest Champions League setback.

Rooney’s intervention follows United’s 4-1 defeat away to Como in Europe, a result that has intensified scrutiny on head coach Michael Carrick and exposed deepening tensions inside the dressing room.

Post‑match interviews ignite internal rift

In the immediate aftermath of the loss in Italy, Fernandes criticised aspects of the game plan, while Martinez had already given an eye-catching post-match interview of his own, during which he pointed the finger at technical director Jason Wilcox.

Those public comments, coming from two of the most influential figures in the squad, have shifted the conversation from tactics and form to leadership and accountability at Old Trafford.

Speaking on The United Stand podcast, Rooney said he viewed Martinez’s earlier interview as a tipping point.

“When Martinez came out, I said this is an absolute nightmare because it will rip the dressing room apart. That was the start,” Rooney said.

“We’ve seen it now with Bruno and you’re going to see it with more players. The reason why is because them players don’t want to take responsibility.”

Rooney calls for accountability over blame

Rooney, United’s all-time leading goalscorer and a former club captain, framed the current situation as a failure of collective responsibility rather than simply a tactical disagreement with Carrick.

“You can say whether Bruno was right or wrong in what he said, but you have to take responsibility on the pitch, you have to take responsibility as a group of players,” he said.

He contrasted the present culture with his own experiences under Sir Alex Ferguson, highlighting the expectation that personal relationships could be strained off the pitch while commitment on it remained absolute.

“There were times when me and Alex Ferguson wouldn’t talk, but I’d run through a brick wall for him on the pitch,” Rooney recalled.

Rooney went on to describe the current group as “selfish”, arguing that too many players were more concerned with self-preservation than with United’s wider interests.

“These players, they’re selfish. They care about themselves, they don’t care about their team-mates, don’t care about the manager, about the staff or the fans, they care about themselves,” he said.

“If they’re not getting what’s right for them, they’re like babies and just throw their toys out of the pram and go and deflect the blame on to anyone else but themselves. They have to look at themselves.”

Carrick under pressure as scrutiny grows

The defeat in Como has sharpened questions around Carrick’s position and raised issues that now stretch beyond tactics to dressing-room authority and institutional clarity.

During the same appearance, Rooney also called for the club’s board to provide clarity regarding Carrick’s future, underlining the importance of clear decision-making structures at the top of the club when results are poor and senior players are speaking out in public.

His remarks arrive at a time when United’s Champions League campaign is being judged not only on results but also on how the club is handling pressure off the pitch. In the European competition, overseen by UEFA, early-season setbacks can quickly constrain qualification scenarios and increase the financial and sporting stakes of every group-stage fixture.

Fernandes and Martinez singled out

Rooney was explicit in his assessment of Fernandes’ current form and Martinez’s role in escalating tensions.

“Bruno, he’s having probably the worst run of form he’s had since he’s been at the club and again, it’s no coincidence he’s putting pressure on someone else because he doesn’t want to face it,” he said.

“If he looks at himself in the mirror, if Martinez looks at himself in the mirror, all the players… they’ll find what is looking back at them is them and it’s not good enough.”

The former England captain’s comments underline a core tension at elite level: captains and senior professionals are expected to represent the dressing room externally while maintaining internal unity. When that balance is lost, criticism aired through post-match interviews can complicate a manager’s authority and make it harder to stabilise performances on the pitch.

Dressing-room unity and wider implications

For a club competing on multiple fronts, sustained public criticism from within carries broader consequences. With Champions League fixtures played under intense global scrutiny and domestic ambitions running in parallel, a fractured dressing room can undermine:

• short-term performance in key European and domestic matches
• the manager’s ability to implement tactical changes without public challenge
• the club’s longer-term planning around leadership roles within the squad

Rooney’s warning that such interviews “will rip the dressing room apart” highlights the risk that individual frustrations expressed in public could harden into deeper divisions, just as United need cohesion to respond to a heavy defeat.

At board level, decisions about the coaching structure, sporting direction and internal communication will shape how the club absorbs this setback. In modern elite football, where commercial revenues and competitive standing are closely linked to performance in Europe, resolving such tensions quickly has both sporting and institutional significance.

Wayne Rooney’s full remarks came during an appearance on The United Stand podcast, where he also discussed the need for clarity from the club’s hierarchy over Michael Carrick’s position and the responsibilities of senior players in times of crisis.