Rooney brands Man United players 'selfish babies' as Fernandes-Carrick row deepens

Wayne Rooney has branded Manchester United’s current squad “selfish babies” after Bruno Fernandes publicly criticised manager Michael Carrick’s tactical decisions following a 4-1 Champions League defeat to Como, with the former United captain accusing his compatriots of refusing to accept responsibility for the club’s struggles.

Fernandes sparked the controversy when he told reporters that the decision not to press man-to-man — and the consequences of leaving space behind — was “on the manager and staff to see, not me.” The comments came just days after Lisandro Martinez had also voiced frustration following a defeat to Atletico Madrid, a sequence Rooney described as the beginning of a dressing-room fracture.

Speaking on The United Stand, Rooney was unsparing in his assessment. “When Martinez came out, I said this is an absolute nightmare because it will rip the dressing room apart; that was the start,” he said. “We’ve seen it now with Bruno, and you’re going to see it with more players because they don’t want to take responsibility.”

Rooney reserved his sharpest words for Fernandes specifically. “He is 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 and all of them looked at themselves in the mirror, they’ll find what’s looking back at them is them, and that’s not good enough.”

The former United and England captain went further, questioning the collective character of the squad. “These players, they’re selfish. They don’t care about their team-mates, the manager, the staff, or the fans. They care about themselves. 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 onto anyone else but themselves.”

Carrick, for his part, pushed back on Fernandes’ tactical critique. “We actually half-pressed man-to-man the second half and then conceded a goal from that,” the manager said. “And there’s a little bit of whatever system you play, whatever tactics you play — if you don’t run, and you don’t run forward, and you don’t run back, you ain’t going to win.”

The public back-and-forth between Fernandes and Carrick, amplified now by Rooney’s intervention, raises serious questions about the unity within United’s squad at a critical stage of their Champions League campaign.