[TRUE NUMBER 9]

As good as he is - and he IS very good, despite limitations with a few aspects of his game - the fact remains that the club needs to make a decision.

It comes down to this:

1) A new contract - offered to a player who plays less than 50% of the games (fact, look it up)

2) No new deal but see how his body and form holds up over the forthcoming expanded & potentially very demanding season

3) Welcome bids whilst his value is at its highest for some time

de Ligt is out until feck knows when...Maguire is not playing twice a week...Heaven & to a lesser extent Yoro look good young defenders but probably need an experienced, quality defender alongside them for the next year or two.

The question remains, what to do with a heavily injured but quality player...

He plays bigger than his frame
His play on the ball is up there with the top defenders around
His attitude, drive & tackling are also strong facets of his game
His aerial ability is not great, neither is his pace

Personally, I'd sell him for one reason and one reason alone, i.e. that despite his talent, over a period of several years at the club - not a small sample size but a longer term proven fact - he has played so little (I repeat, less than 50% of games)

If a Ferrari was in the garage so often due to all manner of ailments, I'd sell it and buy something more reliable...such as a Defender

 

[Ekeke]

Conundrum. Extremely talented guy, but missed 50 percent of the matches because of injury. The romantic in me wants to keep him but if we could sell him we sort of have to. Injury prone players can’t be trusted.

The simplest and most effective solution is you keep him and sign a new player you hope can learn from him and do some of the things he does. Then that player develops into the replacement and at that point you can think about letting him go

I think Heaven is a good young CB talent but I dont see him being a Lisandro type CB. I see him being the usual box defending, physical CB that Maguire and De Ligt are. I think Heaven is comfortable on the ball, rather than a creative player who will allow you to play without a deep DM dictacting play because he does it from the backline

 

[Raoul]

The simplest and most effective solution is you keep him and sign a new player you hope can learn from him and do some of the things he does. Then that player develops into the replacement and at that point you can think about letting him go

I think Heaven is a good young CB talent but I dont see him being a Lisandro type CB. I see him being the usual box defending, physical CB that Maguire and De Ligt are. I think Heaven is comfortable on the ball, rather than a creative player who will allow you to play without a deep DM dictacting play because he does it from the backline

Ironically, I don't even see the buy/sell thing as a legitimate question - as in, I don't think the club are even entertaining something that is more of a narrative among a small subsection of fans. This is therefore no more plausible than us selling the likes of Mount or De Ligt. What you said above does make a lot of sense though. The best case scenario for our defense is to get Licha and De Ligt starting with Yoro and Heaven playing situationally and learning and utilyzing Maguire more selectively. If someone gets injured, we will have more than enough talent to plug any potential gaps.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Ironically, I don't even see the buy/sell thing as a legitimate question - as in, I don't think the club are even entertaining something that is more of a narrative among a small subsection of fans. This is therefore no more plausible than us selling the likes of Mount or De Ligt. What you said above does make a lot of sense though. The best case scenario for our defense is to get Licha and De Ligt starting with Yoro and Heaven playing situationally and learning and utilyzing Maguire more selectively. If someone gets injured, we will have more than enough talent to plug any potential gaps.

I thought that had rarely happened. So did a quick search, and I clearly don’t guarantee it’s correct, but potentially they have played only:

9 times together in a back 4
10 times as part of a 3

(That’s over two seasons).

So I think it’s more hope that logic to suggest those two could be fit together for any sort of prolonged period. You really need your CBs to develop a partnership.

 

[Ekeke]

Since i wondered about it previously in this thread when Haaland was brought up, I asked chatgpt about Lisandro's full record of games against Haaland's teams. Here are the results :

"Here is every senior meeting between Lisandro Martínez and Erling Haaland for club and country.

Date	Competition	Match	Result	Haaland Goals
28 Sep 2021	UEFA Champions League	Ajax vs Borussia Dortmund	Ajax 4-0 Dortmund	0
3 Nov 2021	UEFA Champions League	Borussia Dortmund vs Ajax	Dortmund 3-1 Ajax	1 (penalty)
2 Oct 2022	Premier League	Manchester City vs Manchester United	Man City 6-3 Man United	3
14 Jan 2023	Premier League	Manchester United vs Manchester City	Man United 2-1 Man City	0
10 Aug 2024	FA Community Shield	Manchester City vs Manchester United	1-1 (Man United won 7-6 on pens)	0
15 Dec 2024	Premier League	Manchester City vs Manchester United	Man United 2-1 Man City	0
17 Jan 2026	Premier League	Manchester United vs Manchester City	Man United 2-0 Man City	0

There has never been a senior international match between Argentina and Norway, so Martínez and Haaland have not faced each other for their national teams.

Head-to-head totals​

• Matches played: 7
• Martínez record: 4 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses
• Goals scored by Haaland: 4 (3 for Man City, 1 for Dortmund)
• Matches in which Haaland scored: 2 of 7
• Goals conceded by Martínez's teams:12 in 7 matches
  • Ajax conceded: 3 goals in 2 games
  • Manchester United conceded: 9 goals in 5 games
  • Total: 12 goals conceded in 7 matches.

An interesting stat is that despite conceding 12 goals collectively, Martínez has kept Haaland scoreless in five of their seven meetings, which is one of the better records any defender has against the Norwegian striker.

Best statistical records (minimum 5 meetings)​

Defender	Matches vs Haaland	Haaland Goals	Goals per Game
Virgil van Dijk	~6	2	0.33
Gabriel Magalhães	~8	3	0.38
Lisandro Martínez	7	4	0.57
William Saliba	~6	4	0.67

"

VVD and Lisandro Martinez both currently have a 4 streak of games with Haaland playing and not scoring which are the best current records

Haaland has 4 goals in 5 matches vs Maguire and 2 goals in 3 matches vs De Ligt. So its not just our record being good against Haaland.

 

[Raoul]

I thought that had rarely happened. So did a quick search, and I clearly don’t guarantee it’s correct, but potentially they have played only:

9 times together in a back 4
10 times as part of a 3

(That’s over two seasons).

So I think it’s more hope that logic to suggest those two could be fit together for any sort of prolonged period. You really need your CBs to develop a partnership.

It didn't happen frequently due to several converging factors. Licha and De Ligt's injuries last year being the obvious ones, but also the development of Yoro in year one, where he played well initially and the same with Heaven last year. If everyone is fit, I'm pretty sure Licha and De Ligt are comfortably our best defedners and would start on a semi-consistent basis.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

It didn't happen frequently due to several converging factors. Licha and De Ligt's injuries last year being the obvious ones, but also the development of Yoro in year one, where he played well initially and the same with Heaven last year. If everyone is fit, I'm pretty sure Licha and De Ligt are comfortably our best defedners and would start on a semi-consistent basis.

Assuming two players with a history of injuries can stay fit at the same time…

 

[TRUE NUMBER 9]

I thought that had rarely happened. So did a quick search, and I clearly don’t guarantee it’s correct, but potentially they have played only:

9 times together in a back 4
10 times as part of a 3

(That’s over two seasons).

So I think it’s more hope that logic to suggest those two could be fit together for any sort of prolonged period. You really need your CBs to develop a partnership.

This is the key here and something people are overlooking when considering the CB situation. United can't plan without being able to rely upon a consistently available CB pairing. It is the very foundation of the team and especially so should one of them turn out to be Heaven. He'll need an experienced reliable partner back there, something that unfortunately, neither de Ligt nor Martinez is able to be.

 

[Ekeke]

This is the key here and something people are overlooking when considering the CB situation. United can't plan without being able to rely upon a consistently available CB pairing. It is the very foundation of the team and especially so should one of them turn out to be Heaven. He'll need an experienced reliable partner back there, something that unfortunately, neither de Ligt nor Martinez is able to be.

Well Martinez and Maguire had our best defensive record last season and coincided with our form under Carrick. They've played 40 games together. And they played 10 together last season, conceding 9 goals

You're right about developing a new partnership. But that one is established. And only Arsenal and City played more games than goals conceded overall. For those 10 games we just about make that as well

Some more chatgpt about our best defensive records last season

"Among Manchester United's centre-backs in the 2025/26 season, the best defensive records by goals conceded per game were approximately as follows:

Centre-back (in matches played)	Games	Goals Conceded	Goals Conceded per Game
Lisandro Martínez + Harry Maguire	10	9	0.90
Harry Maguire (all appearances)	23	~22	0.96
Lisandro Martínez (all appearances)	17	~17	1.00
Leny Yoro	32	~34	1.06
Matthijs de Ligt	14	~16	1.14
Ayden Heaven	18	~22	1.22

(The individual figures are based on team goals conceded in matches in which each player appeared, so they can overlap because multiple centre-backs play in the same game.)

Best partnerships​

From the available partnership data:

1. Lisandro Martínez + Harry Maguire: 9 goals conceded in 10 matches (0.90 per game).
2. Harry Maguire + Leny Yoro: roughly 12 in 13 matches (0.92 per game).
3. Lisandro Martínez + Leny Yoro: around 11 in 11 matches (1.00 per game).
4. De Ligt partnerships: generally above 1.1 goals conceded per game before his back injury ended his season.

Conclusion​

If you're looking strictly at games played versus goals conceded, the standout Manchester United centre-back combination in 2025/26 was:


Lisandro Martínez & Harry Maguire

• 10 games
• 9 goals conceded
• 0.90 goals conceded per game
• 4 clean sheets
• 6W-2D-2L record

Individually, Harry Maguire had the best goals-conceded rate among United's regular senior centre-backs, narrowly ahead of Martínez, while the Martínez–Maguire partnership was comfortably the club's most efficient defensive pairing statistically."

So while Heaven keeps getting mentioned, he actually had our worst record for goals conceded vs games played. Worse than Yoro. Worse than de Ligt, Martinez and Maguire. He's also a youngster so its to be expected, but it should ground some of the talk that Heaven is good enough to replace Lisandro.

 

[HookedOnAPhelan]

This is the key here and something people are overlooking when considering the CB situation. United can't plan without being able to rely upon a consistently available CB pairing. It is the very foundation of the team and especially so should one of them turn out to be Heaven. He'll need an experienced reliable partner back there, something that unfortunately, neither de Ligt nor Martinez is able to be.

We can and we have. You think Rio and Vidic were both consistently available during our all our 5 title winning seasons from 2006 to 2013? Not even close.

 

[TRUE NUMBER 9]

We can and we have. You think Rio and Vidic were both consistently available during our all our 5 title winning seasons from 2006 to 2013? Not even close.

Whilst both of those players (slash legends) you named had injury issues, if you actually bothered to check, you would find that they both played a fair bit more than Martinez and his under 50% PL appearance rate during his United career.

Vidic - from 2006 season...25, 32, 34, 24, 35, 6, 19, 25 (avg 25 games per season)
Ferdinand - from 2005/6 season...37, 33, 35, 24, 13, 19, 30, 28 (avg of 27.3 games per season)

Martinez career...27, 11, 20, 18 (avg 18 games per season)
de Ligt 42 appearances over two seasons (avg 21 games per season)

 

[HookedOnAPhelan]

Whilst both of those players (slash legends) you named had injury issues, if you actually bothered to check, you would find that they both played a fair bit more than Martinez and his under 50% PL appearance rate during his United career.

Vidic - from 2006 season...25, 32, 34, 24, 35, 6, 19, 25 (avg 25 games per season)
Ferdinand - from 2005/6 season...37, 33, 35, 24, 13, 19, 30, 28 (avg of 27.3 games per season)

Martinez career...27, 11, 20, 18 (avg 18 games per season)
de Ligt 42 appearances over two seasons (avg 21 games per season)

You said "consistently available CB pairing."

 

[TRUE NUMBER 9]

You said "consistently available CB pairing."

Yeah, well 27 or 25 games a season is more consistent than 18.

 

[Rolaholic]

Hate that he's Argentinean

Best ball-playing CB out there

 

[TheRedHearted]

This.

As I stated, those who think we sell this player are watching a different game of football than I.

He is a class act, great personality, and a genuinely high-quality footballer. Look at that pass for Messi's goal. Note where the ball lands.

We are not blessed with many ball-players, with his confidence and skill.

If we need to manage his games, then let's do so, there's nothing wrong with that.

He is a Manchester United player, with tons of quality and experience.

He should feel nothing but love from our fan-base, because you don't want to lose players like him.

We can’t rely on him is the issue, physically. We can praise him of course but we need consistency.

The simplest and most effective solution is you keep him and sign a new player you hope can learn from him and do some of the things he does. Then that player develops into the replacement and at that point you can think about letting him go

I think Heaven is a good young CB talent but I dont see him being a Lisandro type CB. I see him being the usual box defending, physical CB that Maguire and De Ligt are. I think Heaven is comfortable on the ball, rather than a creative player who will allow you to play without a deep DM dictacting play because he does it from the backline

So who do we sign that’s ball playing cb? I do like this idea but we have to have some ideas. What about mazroui? Couldn’t he learn this role?

 

[Ekeke]

We can’t rely on him is the issue, physically. We can praise him of course but we need consistency.

So who do we sign that’s ball playing cb? I do like this idea but we have to have some ideas. What about mazroui? Couldn’t he learn this role?

No. Mazraoui doesnt even have creativity from rightback so hows he going to show it from CB? Its only going to be learned by select few and from a younger age

Statistically both Van Hecke and Senesi both had great stats for playing out from the back this season in their own rights. Van Hecke was also joint most mistakes leading to goals with 4, same as his goalkeeper. So on the one hand you could say he would have been a player we could have got to replace Martinez, but he also had more brainfarts and got caught more often. In comparison we had 5 mistakes leading to goal from all our players combined... Lisandro had 0, Maguire had 1, de ligt 0

Senesi is another left footer who can play out from the back and had great stats for it last season. He also had 0 mistakes leading to goals

Spurs signed both of these so they're off the market. So that means there arent really any premier league candidates to be a successor to Lisandro. Jon Martin at Sociedad in la liga looks like a long term candidate but hes 20. He'd be my pick right now for someone to come in and learn from Lisandro for 2 seasons, by then Lisandro will be 30 and maybe we'd be steady to lose him at that point. But I wouldnt be surprised if he was still better and we still needed him

 

[aeh1991]

We have an amazing backup in Heaven. Same goes for De Ligt and Yoro. And Maguire too. I think we are fine.

 

[FriedClams]

Not sure which world people live in where it’s acceptable to part with a starting Argentina CB who’s absolutely one of the best at distributing the ball, and we have a 6’5 striker who is great at holding the ball up and making runs in behind

 

[Lennon7]

Well Martinez and Maguire had our best defensive record last season and coincided with our form under Carrick. They've played 40 games together. And they played 10 together last season, conceding 9 goals

You're right about developing a new partnership. But that one is established. And only Arsenal and City played more games than goals conceded overall. For those 10 games we just about make that as well

Some more chatgpt about our best defensive records last season

"Among Manchester United's centre-backs in the 2025/26 season, the best defensive records by goals conceded per game were approximately as follows:

Centre-back (in matches played)	Games	Goals Conceded	Goals Conceded per Game
Lisandro Martínez + Harry Maguire	10	9	0.90
Harry Maguire (all appearances)	23	~22	0.96
Lisandro Martínez (all appearances)	17	~17	1.00
Leny Yoro	32	~34	1.06
Matthijs de Ligt	14	~16	1.14
Ayden Heaven	18	~22	1.22

(The individual figures are based on team goals conceded in matches in which each player appeared, so they can overlap because multiple centre-backs play in the same game.)

Best partnerships​

From the available partnership data:

1. Lisandro Martínez + Harry Maguire: 9 goals conceded in 10 matches (0.90 per game).
2. Harry Maguire + Leny Yoro: roughly 12 in 13 matches (0.92 per game).
3. Lisandro Martínez + Leny Yoro: around 11 in 11 matches (1.00 per game).
4. De Ligt partnerships: generally above 1.1 goals conceded per game before his back injury ended his season.

Conclusion​

If you're looking strictly at games played versus goals conceded, the standout Manchester United centre-back combination in 2025/26 was:


Lisandro Martínez & Harry Maguire

• 10 games
• 9 goals conceded
• 0.90 goals conceded per game
• 4 clean sheets
• 6W-2D-2L record

Individually, Harry Maguire had the best goals-conceded rate among United's regular senior centre-backs, narrowly ahead of Martínez, while the Martínez–Maguire partnership was comfortably the club's most efficient defensive pairing statistically."

So while Heaven keeps getting mentioned, he actually had our worst record for goals conceded vs games played. Worse than Yoro. Worse than de Ligt, Martinez and Maguire. He's also a youngster so its to be expected, but it should ground some of the talk that Heaven is good enough to replace Lisandro.

To be fair, De Ligt was playing when we were shite under Amorim but was holding it together well. I’d say when De Ligt is fit, our best partnership would be him and Licha. Problem is both of them aren’t ever fit at the same time

 

[lex talionis]

What does he have to complain about? It's all well and good talking about his unique qualities but if he's never fit to show them he might as well not have them and that's where many people concerns stem from when talking about selling/renewing his contract. If Martinez was regularly fit no one would second guess renewing him because like you say he's a quality player, problem is he's shown he can't stay fit.

Martinez has nothing to complain about, but the point is nor do we. Some of us, and it appears you are among them, who complain that Martinez is never fit. Most footballers deal with injuries. If we refuse to sign or extend contracts with players who never miss a game we’ll have a pretty small roster or a roster of mediocre players, but hey, at least they never a game.

 

[lex talionis]

I don’t dispute hies been a good professional. However, so what.

No one is lumping him in with Greenwood / but misbehaviour, or poor attitude is not the only reason to move players on. That’s the mindset we need to get out of.

Nothing at all wrong with the club moving players on, if that’s what happens.

I agree that there comes a time for all players to move on. Sometimes the player himself wants to move on, such as Ronaldo. Sometime the player just isn’t good enough, such as Fred. Sometimes it’s exigent circumstances, such as Sancho and Greenwood. But it’s very rare to get rid of a brilliant footballer who wants to stay and is still at the peak of his career.

Rare doesn’t mean never, but if there’s a better CB on the market and we have the 80m it would take to upgrade on Martinez after we address the two CM positions, the LB and the additional winger everyone wants then by all means let’s get rid of Martinez for the marginally better CB over one of the best CBs in the world. But it seems unlikely that in a time when we’re unwilling to spend 80m on a midfielder that we desperately need that we’re going to spend 80m on a CB who represents a meaningful upgrade on Martinez.

 

[Frank White]

Martinez has nothing to complain about, but the point is nor do we. Some of us, and it appears you are among them, who complain that Martinez is never fit. Most footballers deal with injuries. If we refuse to sign or extend contracts with players who never miss a game we’ll have a pretty small roster or a roster of mediocre players, but hey, at least they never a game.

There's clearly a huge difference between missing the odd game and missing 50% of a season, across multiple seasons.....

If Martinez fell into the category of misses a few games a season, talking less than 10 then this conversation wouldn't be happening because he is a fantastic player but he's missing 50% of his United career due to injury, that's a massive problem.

You can't honestly see the problem with giving a player who's had an awful injury record a new contract?

 

[Ekeke]

There's clearly a huge difference between missing the odd game and missing 50% of a season, across multiple seasons.....

If Martinez fell into the category of misses a few games a season, talking less than 10 then this conversation wouldn't be happening because he is a fantastic player but he's missing 50% of his United career due to injury, that's a massive problem.

You can't honestly see the problem with giving a player who's had an awful injury record a new contract?

If they have value its a no brainer. He's currently playing the best out of all Cbs in the world cup, if we got him to sign a deal and then sold him we'd make plenty of money

Losing him on a free would be a disaster

 

[lex talionis]

There's clearly a huge difference between missing the odd game and missing 50% of a season, across multiple seasons.....

If Martinez fell into the category of misses a few games a season, talking less than 10 then this conversation wouldn't be happening because he is a fantastic player but he's missing 50% of his United career due to injury, that's a massive problem.

You can't honestly see the problem with giving a player who's had an awful injury record a new contract?

Luke Shaw, Mattijs De Ligt, Lisandro Martinez, Harry Maguire…shall we get rid of all of them? Perhaps, if we are to allow the lynch mob to call the shots. Maybe we get 75m total at best for all four, although 50m is more likely all things considered. Do we you really believe we can replace all four at a cost of only 50m?

 

[AndySmith1990]

Luke Shaw, Mattijs De Ligt, Lisandro Martinez, Harry Maguire…shall we get rid of all of them? Perhaps, if we are to allow the lynch mob to call the shots. Maybe we get 75m total at best for all four, although 50m is more likely all things considered. Do we you really believe we can replace all four at a cost of only 50m?

Yeah we should get rid of players who are constantly missing every season. People made the same stupid excuses for Phil Jones year after year. "if he could stay fit..."

 

[Ekeke]

Yeah we should get rid of players who are constantly missing every season. People made the same stupid excuses for Phil Jones year after year. "if he could stay fit..."

Jones wasnt our best CB when available

 

[lex talionis]

Yeah we should get rid of players who are constantly missing every season. People made the same stupid excuses for Phil Jones year after year. "if he could stay fit..."

Phil Jones played virtually no games for four seasons, possibly five.

But even if Phil played 50% of the games during his United career, I hope you’re not seriously comparing Jones to any of Shaw, De Ligt, Martinez, or Maguire. He had potential as a young footballer and had maybe a half dozen solid performances for us, but he was never anywhere near world class.

 

[Frank White]

Luke Shaw, Mattijs De Ligt, Lisandro Martinez, Harry Maguire…shall we get rid of all of them? Perhaps, if we are to allow the lynch mob to call the shots. Maybe we get 75m total at best for all four, although 50m is more likely all things considered. Do we you really believe we can replace all four at a cost of only 50m?

If all of them are unavailable for 50% of the season then yes they should be replaced. Actually it's not even a should they be replaced they'll need to be replaced. Ideally Shaw and Maguire will be phased out gradually but the other two should be are starting CB but neither are reliable so they need replacing if they show this season they can't be counted on.

It's nothing to do with lynch mob or not rating the players but if they're not available then we need to buy players that are and if we have to move them on to do so then so be it.

 

[JustinC00]

There are a lot of people on here who are determined to have us finish below Spurs next season.

Wouldn't shock me, they seem to be on a mission to get De Zerbi a very good MF and he knows the league and now gets a pre-season with them. Would not surprise me at all if Spurs finished ahead of us if we are gonna go into the season with Shaw as our #1 and only LB(still a question on Dorgu at LB Carrick I don't think played him 1 time there, was always LW), Mainoo/Ederson as our starting MF because we've decided to just ignore our most glaring issue and give up on bolstering MF because ineos are cheap as they spend the summer chasing and fecking about for a LW from West Ham that will cost us 50-60m that we don't need, while having potential questions at CB which who knows if/when de Ligt will return, Martinez has a history that we all hope doesn't rear it's ugly head but if it does we are suddenly you are down to Yoro, Heaven and Maguire at CB. Which you hope Yoro and Heaven might be able to be the next good CB partnership but might still be a bit too earlier to be featuring them playing Saturday in the league and then Tuesday/Wednesday in CL

 

[The holy trinity 68]

If all of them are unavailable for 50% of the season then yes they should be replaced. Actually it's not even a should they be replaced they'll need to be replaced. Ideally Shaw and Maguire will be phased out gradually but the other two should be are starting CB but neither are reliable so they need replacing if they show this season they can't be counted on.

It's nothing to do with lynch mob or not rating the players but if they're not available then we need to buy players that are and if we have to move them on to do so then so be it.

But that is why all teams need some depth to rotate, as they all won't be injured at the same time.

 

[The holy trinity 68]

We won't finish below Spurs ffs. They finished 17th twice in a row, they still have a lot of mediocre players and half of their new signings are underwhelming. Their attack is dreadful. Tel and Solanke as their main strikers

 

[Trigestis]

I just want to try him as part of the midfield in some games that are easy wins or where we're in a comfortable lead to see how he would fare. His ability to break the lines is elite, and having him a bit further forward could be a lethal weapon in itself. Tchouameni, Martinez and Bruno should be solid enough against most teams, with plenty of progressive passing between them.

 

[NLunited]

Well Martinez and Maguire had our best defensive record last season and coincided with our form under Carrick. They've played 40 games together. And they played 10 together last season, conceding 9 goals

You're right about developing a new partnership. But that one is established. And only Arsenal and City played more games than goals conceded overall. For those 10 games we just about make that as well

Some more chatgpt about our best defensive records last season

"Among Manchester United's centre-backs in the 2025/26 season, the best defensive records by goals conceded per game were approximately as follows:

Centre-back (in matches played)	Games	Goals Conceded	Goals Conceded per Game
Lisandro Martínez + Harry Maguire	10	9	0.90
Harry Maguire (all appearances)	23	~22	0.96
Lisandro Martínez (all appearances)	17	~17	1.00
Leny Yoro	32	~34	1.06
Matthijs de Ligt	14	~16	1.14
Ayden Heaven	18	~22	1.22

(The individual figures are based on team goals conceded in matches in which each player appeared, so they can overlap because multiple centre-backs play in the same game.)

Best partnerships​

From the available partnership data:

1. Lisandro Martínez + Harry Maguire: 9 goals conceded in 10 matches (0.90 per game).
2. Harry Maguire + Leny Yoro: roughly 12 in 13 matches (0.92 per game).
3. Lisandro Martínez + Leny Yoro: around 11 in 11 matches (1.00 per game).
4. De Ligt partnerships: generally above 1.1 goals conceded per game before his back injury ended his season.

Conclusion​

If you're looking strictly at games played versus goals conceded, the standout Manchester United centre-back combination in 2025/26 was:


Lisandro Martínez & Harry Maguire

• 10 games
• 9 goals conceded
• 0.90 goals conceded per game
• 4 clean sheets
• 6W-2D-2L record

Individually, Harry Maguire had the best goals-conceded rate among United's regular senior centre-backs, narrowly ahead of Martínez, while the Martínez–Maguire partnership was comfortably the club's most efficient defensive pairing statistically."

So while Heaven keeps getting mentioned, he actually had our worst record for goals conceded vs games played. Worse than Yoro. Worse than de Ligt, Martinez and Maguire. He's also a youngster so its to be expected, but it should ground some of the talk that Heaven is good enough to replace Lisandro.

To be fair, the number of games is too small to make a fair comparison. One more goal or one less would skew the whole thing.

 

[Ekeke]

To be fair, the number of games is too small to make a fair comparison. One more goal or one less would skew the whole thing.

1 more goal for Maguire in the same amount of games with everyone else staying the same would still make him joint 1st record
1 more goal for Martinez would still have him 2nd
1 more goal for Yoro or de ligt would still have them ahead of Heaven

 

[NLunited]

1 more goal for Maguire in the same amount of games with everyone else staying the same would still make him joint 1st record
1 more goal for Martinez would still have him 2nd
1 more goal for Yoro or de ligt would still have them ahead of Heaven

Would you mind including a Lisandro+De Ligt partnership as well?

 

[Ekeke]

Would you mind including a Lisandro+De Ligt partnership as well?

13 in 11 games playing together in the premier league
23 in 15 games in other cups
total = 36 conceded in 26 games playing together in all competitions

I think the non premier league stats are obviously effected by fielding weaker lineups in cups as its a lot worse. The 9 in 10 games for Lisandro and Maguire was all competitions though

One more thing that does complicate things is back 3 data

Most of de Ligt's games we were playing 3 at the back. When Lisandro returned we were initially playing 3 at the back, but then went to 2 at the back under Carrick for the final run. There was that one game from Amorim too. Regardless I think the Lisandro and Maguire number we played 2 Cbs in those games for sure. But with De Ligt's numbers we probably had for example Lisandro Martinez, de Ligt and Yoro all playing or Martinez, de ligt and Shaw. So while it answers my query asking about Lisandro and de ligt playing together, realistically the record is shared with a 3rd player each time.

Lisandro, de ligt and Yoro played 7 matches together conceding 8 goals

So I asked a different question specifically about what our most used back 3s were and their records :

Back three	Matches	Goals conceded	Goals per game
Maguire – De Ligt – Martínez	~9	~8	0.89
De Ligt – Martínez – Yoro	~7	~8	1.14
Maguire – De Ligt – Yoro	~12	~15	1.25

So, despite not playing together very often because of injuries, Maguire–De Ligt–Martínez was both United's most-used and statistically best-performing back three, conceding less than one goal per game.

 

[NLunited]

13 in 11 games playing together in the premier league
23 in 15 games in other cups
total = 36 conceded in 26 games playing together in all competitions

I think the non premier league stats are obviously effected by fielding weaker lineups in cups as its a lot worse. The 9 in 10 games for Lisandro and Maguire was all competitions though

One more thing that does complicate things is back 3 data

Most of de Ligt's games we were playing 3 at the back. When Lisandro returned we were initially playing 3 at the back, but then went to 2 at the back under Carrick for the final run. There was that one game from Amorim too. Regardless I think the Lisandro and Maguire number we played 2 Cbs in those games for sure. But with De Ligt's numbers we probably had for example Lisandro Martinez, de Ligt and Yoro all playing or Martinez, de ligt and Shaw. So while it answers my query asking about Lisandro and de ligt playing together, realistically the record is shared with a 3rd player each time.

Lisandro, de ligt and Yoro played 7 matches together conceding 8 goals

So I asked a different question specifically about what our most used back 3s were and their records :

Back three	Matches	Goals conceded	Goals per game
Maguire – De Ligt – Martínez	~9	~8	0.89
De Ligt – Martínez – Yoro	~7	~8	1.14
Maguire – De Ligt – Yoro	~12	~15	1.25

So, despite not playing together very often because of injuries, Maguire–De Ligt–Martínez was both United's most-used and statistically best-performing back three, conceding less than one goal per game.

Thanks. Basically, our most experienced cb‘s concede less. Not a surprise.

 

[pascell]

Still stand by that we should be selling him this summer, having a honking game here that reaffirms that for me.

 

[Lu Tze]

Still stand by that we should be selling him this summer, having a honking game here that reaffirms that for me.

You'll summon them.

 

[DWelbz19]

Yeah it’s a hall of fame stinker today. Made even worse because of how fecking good he was last round