Phil Jones has claimed that Anthony Martial was ‘always late’ for training and team meetings at Manchester United – and it appears his former team-mate wasn’t overly ‘bothered’ about the repercussions.
Having retired from the game earlier this year, Jones, 32, has dipped his toes into the world of football punditry and has made no secret of his plans to move into coaching in the future.
The former England defender was plagued by injury problems for much of his playing career but still managed to get his hands on five pieces of silverware at Old Trafford.
Across his time at the Theatre of Dreams, Jones played alongside many of the most high-profile players in world football, from Wayne Rooney to Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs.
He also shared a dressing room with a number of big names who struggled to live up to expectations in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, including Martial, who, like himself, was hampered by injury during stay in Manchester.
But it seems Martial, now turning out for AEK Athens, didn’t exactly help himself with his approach off the pitch, with Jones giving an insight into the Frenchman’s relaxed attitude when it came to timekeeping.
Asked who was always late to training, Jones told SPORTbible: ‘How long have we got?,’ before adding, ‘Anthony Martial… always late. Yeah, always late – training, meetings, bus.’
On the suggestion Martial must have been racking up significant fines, Jones responded: ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.
‘I don’t think it bothered him too much!’
Asked whether Martial was the most fined player in the squad, Jones answered: ‘He’ll be up there, he’ll be up there.’
It’s not the first time the character and mentality of the post-Ferguson United dressing room has been called into question, with Wayne Rooney taking aim at Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard’s behaviour in 2021.
‘I do remember one time, coming into training at United the day after a defeat, still feeling very annoyed and walking into the dressing room with Michael Carrick,’ Rooney wrote in his column for The Times.
‘We found Jesse and Paul dancing in there with the music on. I went over, turned it off and took the speakers out of the dressing room – because that’s my mindset, that’s how I’ve grown up in football.
‘Paul and Jesse accepted it, because I was the senior player, but in hindsight they were not doing anything wrong, not hurting anyone, and it was just my old-school mentality kicking in.’
In a recent conversation with Jones, Rio Ferdinand elaborated on Rooney’s story, revealing how he even phoned up the ex-United and England captain to nip such behaviour in the bud.
‘I’ll tell you when it changed, from the outside at least,’ Ferdinand explained.
‘I rang Wazza when I saw Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard dancing on Instagram when we were sixth in the league. I rang Wazza and asked, “What’s happening here? How are you allowing this?”.
‘He replied, “You can’t say nothing man, it’s not the same anymore”. He said, “It’s not just those two, there would be a big group looking at me like I’m mad if I said anything”.’