Michael Carrick has reached the point every Manchester United manager eventually hits when results collapse, performances turn sour and words suddenly matter almost as much as points. After a seven-match winless run and a grim 4-1 defeat at Como, he is still in the job. For now.
That is the immediate reality at Old Trafford. Carrick will take charge against Bournemouth this weekend, despite growing belief after Wednesday night that his dismissal was close. Internally, the line remains that it is business as usual. In football, that usually means business as usual until it is not.
United have not won since beating Sabah in early September. Since then, the early promise of the season has drained away at speed. The concern is not simply the lack of victories. It is the manner of the decline, the lack of control, the loss of identity and the sight of a team playing well below the standards expected at a club that still measures itself against its own history.
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Manchester United Form Leaves Carrick Exposed
Carrick knows exactly where he stands. Managers do not deliver six-minute statements before a press conference unless they understand the noise around them. He chose to confront it head on, and the tone was clear, defensive in one sense, but also an attempt to reassert authority and remind supporters that he understands the weight of the badge.
He said: “I’ll start today. Just want to say a few things, really. I think it’s important.
“I think recently we haven’t had a good time. I think that’s pretty obvious, so I totally accept that, what we’re going through at the moment.
“We had five months of relative success in a spell where I was happy with a lot of things that I was seeing and that we were doing as a team.
“We haven’t done well enough lately. I think that’s pretty obvious to say, and we’ve had a spell that we’re really not happy with.
“Wednesday was a bad night. It was a bad night for a lot of reasons, and it was a…
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