Lisandro Martinez brings 'warrior spirit' with touch of elegance to Manchester United

Lisandro Martinez likes to tell the story of a crucial turning point in his career. He was only just into his teens, and, by his own admission, had wayward tendencies, a blurred focus on what should be his priorities.

He was a talented young footballer but uncertain about dedicating himself to that pathway if it meant taking him too far from home.

So his family helped set him up with casual work, on a building site in his home town of Gualeguay, Argentina. He turned up for his first day – a long time after the scheduled 6am start. A lesson had been served, as intended.

“My father said to me, ‘Can’t you see this isn’t for you?’ Get yourself together and go to Rosario’,” Martinez said in an interview with Efe. “I’ll never forget that.”

In Rosario, there was an apprenticeship with Newell’s Old Boys, a storied club, waiting for him. He left Gualeguay to take it up, bearing the homesickness, obliged to become suddenly independent, and embarking on a successful journey that has docked at Manchester United.

The would-be bricklayer of a decade or so ago is now occasionally known as 'The Butcher', a nickname he tends to smile about, not quite recalling who, at Ajax – the club he has just left for more than €50 million to join United – first dubbed him that.

Lisandro Martinez, left, is reuniting his old Ajax manager Erik ten Hag at Manchester United. EPA

He understands why they might have done so. Martinez is a tough, uncompromising defender, although it would be misguided to portray him as reckless.

He served a single, one-game suspension across his three seasons in Amsterdam and counts back four-and-a-half years to his one senior red card, in the colours of Defensa y Justicia, the Buenos Aires club he joined from Newell’s and