MART OF THE PROBLEM! Butt demands under-fire Martinez is AXED from Man Utd in extraordinary rant - 'He should have his head ripped off'

Former Manchester United star Nicky Butt has lambasted 'bluffer' Lisandro Martinez and called for him to be sold in an extraordinary rant. Martinez, 28, topped off a woeful October during Saturday's dire 2-0 defeat away to Chelsea by getting sent off after conceding a penalty for an elbow.

It came little over a fortnight after the Argentine hit out at the club's board in an explosive post-match interview. Martinez slammed the United hierarchy for not doing enough in the transfer window, criticising director of football Jason Wilcox.

The defender was fined for his comments but has remained a starter for Michael Carrick's floundering side - despite his string of errors, such as when he was outmuscled by Tottenham striker Dominic Solanke and allowed him to score a stoppage-time equaliser earlier this month. Butt is fed up with Martinez - who he and Paul Scholes have history with - and would sell him if he was in charge.

"That lad's a bluffer, full stop," the ex-United midfielder began on Football Uncensored. "Just a bluffer. The Butcher, his nickname is. I mean it's... yeah."

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"He called out my mate (Scholes) and it was probably my fault, I said something tongue-in-cheek on a podcast and it was like, '[Erling] Haaland would pick up and carry him'. It was tongue in cheek, I didn't think for one minute he would even though Solanke did about a week ago.

"But with him, he's come out and called out a player (Scholes) who's won 11 Premier Leagues for Man United and played for god knows how many years. 'You come and see me and knock on my front door', you can't speak anything about these players because they get all touchy with it.

"Then he's got the audacity to go out onto an interview and slag off the powers that be about buying players when he's not even playing well himself. If they were going to go and buy players, he'd be careful because he's the first one they'd replace. Performance-wise, he's been lacking so much.

"Listen, I was never the best player; I know my level, I know I had a lot of bad games. But one thing I did every single time I went out was ran my myself into the ground and was honest when looking at my team-mates in the eye and said, 'I gave you everything I've got. I might've been crap today but I worked hard'.

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"He (Martinez) threw it in the other day. He threw it in with that elbow because that was the most obvious thing anyone could do. The reason why he did it is because he's not strong enough to defend properly.

"He thought, 'You know what, I'll cut corners, I'll cheat, I'll put my elbow is someone's face and I'll get sent off and I'll leave all the other 10 lads, who by the way I said two weeks ago that these aren't good enough to play with me'.

"I'm getting changed in the changing room and I'm sitting next to these lads and they're going, 'he thinks I'm not good enough'. If that was back in my day, he would've completely have had his head ripped off. Everyone would've said, 'who do you think you are talking about me like that with the performances you're putting in?'

"Even if he was European Player of the Year, you still don't speak like that about your team-mates and your powers that be upstairs. No matter what you think behind closed doors, you don't go and say that.

"He has now gone from - I don't know why, I have no idea why - he's gone from someone the fans love to someone the fans loathe and want out of their football club. He's absolutely killed himself.

"Not only that, he lives in our country and he's dancing around with an Argentinian flag in the World Cup. What are you doing? And you expect people to go and pat your on the back when you've had a bad game.

"Some of these people need to understand... so what if you're on £200,000 a week and you're driving your Rolls Royce through your little village thinking you're King Dick. You can do that all you want but you can't have people tapping you on the back when you're playing so badly and you're slagging people off.

"So I agree with you, Piers (Morgan), I'd be taking him straight out."

Regarding his reference to Martinez's behaviour at the World Cup, he was among the Argentina players to hold a flag which claimed that the Falklands Islands belonged to their country rather than the UK. It came after they beat England 2-1 in the semi-finals.

Martinez will be banned for United's next Premier League game at home to Aston Villa on Sunday. But the 28-year-old is available for Tuesday's Champions League clash with Roma in which the Red Devils will aim to win their first game after nine without a victory.