Manchester United goalkeeper Senne Lammens claimed that, despite being “very frustrated” with the club’s woeful run of form, the locker room remains “all together behind” Michael Carrick.
One week after the club’s upper hierarchy was torn apart by Lisandro Martínez, club captain Bruno Fernandes turned his ire toward the managerial staff. United’s outspoken skipper furiously dismantled Carrick’s tactics in Wednesday’s desperate 4–1 Champions League defeat to Como, criticizing the game plan of not pressing their hosts.
United have thus far resisted the urge to sack Carrick, who has overseen just two victories from 11 matches this season and is currently in the midst of a seven-game winless streak. Any coaches to tentatively consider taking over United have been reportedly put off by a locker room full of players who are viewed as “out of control.”
Lammens was keen to paint a different picture.
“I think it’s easy to see maybe after a game when players are very frustrated—and I get it, I’m very frustrated as well because we all really want to do better and we all want to win—and then we might say sometimes things we don’t really mean or fully explain what we mean,” the goalkeeper told Sky Sports this week.
“Of course, the people at home can’t see that, so we need to also try to look like that when we are on the pitch in the weekend, but I can assure you that we’re doing everything we can and we’re all together behind the coach, as a staff, players, front office.
“Everyone knows, of course, they have to do better, but I think we are united and we are trying to get better as a team and together.”
‘100%’—Carrick Takes Clear Stance on Outspoken Set of Players
Despite notable outbursts from Martínez and Fernandes in recent weeks, as well as the distinctly less punchy performances on the pitch from the rest of his roster, Carrick continues to have “100%” trust in his players.
“I definitely trust them, yeah, 100% I trust them,” Carrick told assembled media before Sunday’s seismic meeting with Bournemouth. “It wasn’t a very good night at all [in Como] for so many reasons. We all know that. I think that’s pretty obvious. I definitely trust them.”
Carrick rejected the claim that Manchester United are “unmanageable” and struck a confident tone when looking ahead to this weekend’s Premier League return. “We’ll be a different team on Sunday,” he promised, “we have to be a different team on Sunday.”
Man Utd’s Tactical Conundrum
United boasted the best record across the final 17 Premier League games of last season after Carrick took charge, yet have only been able to beat newly promoted Ipswich Town in the top flight this term. The dramatic change in results is not one which Lammens has seen in the team’s performances.
“Last season I felt like, playing-wise, maybe we played sometimes better this season, but last season everything just clicked and went the right way for us,” the goalkeeper argued.
The issue for United, as it has been for so many of Carrick’s predecessors, is a stalled evolution. “As a counter team a bit more last season we did really well, but you also know—I think everybody knew—that we had to improve as well from that, that teams were going to change the way they played against us,” Lammens outlined.
That progression has tried to take the form of pressing high up the pitch. Yet, be it a failure of coaching, application, endeavor or all three and more combined, United simply haven’t been able to consistently disrupt their opponents at the sharp end of the pitch. If anything, this attempt to win the ball high has left United exposed at the back, with far too much room between the lines of attack, midfield and defense.
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Given how good Como are at playing through co-ordinated pressing units, Carrick’s reluctance to send his side blindly haring after the ball is understandable. Quite why United still couldn’t form a compact shape even without the demands of pressing is less clear.
Heading into Sunday’s clash with Bournemouth, Carrick was keen to shift the focus away from this tactical talking point. “We’ve won a lot of games over a period of time and this pressing thing—that suddenly everyone thinks about pressing: pressing is one small part of football,” the manager scoffed.
“There’s all sorts of different ways of what people class as a press. What actually is it? What are you doing it for? Is it to your strength? Is it covering up other spaces? It’s just thrown about as a bit of a word at the minute. You don’t necessarily need to press to win games of football. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.”
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