Under-pressure Michael Carrick claims not to have given his position any thought after a humiliating Champions League loss at Como that saw him apologise to Manchester United fans and question his players.
An awful start to the season reached a nadir on Wednesday evening in Italy, where the Red Devils’ winless run stretched to a seventh successive match in all competitions for the first time since 2015.
Cesc Fabregas’ Como outplayed United from the outset, with burgeoning star Nico Paz’s brace complemented by Tasos Douvikas and Jacobo Ramon goals before substitute Joshua Zirkzee scored a stoppage-time consolation.
Under-fire boss Carrick held his hands up apologetically to the largely empty away end at the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia after a damaging 4-1 loss that puts his position in jeopardy.
“First of all, I have to apologise to the supporters,” the United boss said.
“I went over to the (away) end, and I care about this football club as much as anyone, if not more with the position that I’m in and what I value this football club.
“For us to play in that way is not acceptable. It wasn’t a good performance at all. We wanted to build on what we brought to Leeds and the performance that we had at Leeds.
“That bit of intensity, that spirit, that aggression, that real willingness to give everything, and tonight was the total opposite of a performance, I have to say. It was tough to watch.”
Carrick sidestepped a question about whether he would quit during a press conference that ended with the United boss being asked if he feared he could lose his job.
“Listen, I’ve not given my own position any thought,” he said. “It is the supporters (I am thinking about). I was one of them tonight watching that and I wasn’t happy at all.”
Carrick’s fury was palpable after a performance that was markedly different from the purposeful draw at Leeds that he felt marked a “fresh start”.
Instead, the display and post-match apology was strikingly similar to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reaction to the 4-1 loss at Watford that proved his final match as United boss in November 2021.
“We can all play well, we can all have poor performances,” Carrick, who was part of the Norwegian’s staff, said. “But to do it in that manner is really not right at all.
“It wasn’t just the goals, it was the manner and the way we played at times, in the way we went about it, was the difficult thing to watch for me.”
Carrick said he hoped United’s players’ lives are “wrapped around the football club” like his is and admitted he found it “difficult to understand how it can be so different” to Sunday’s display at Elland Road.
It compares even more starkly to the start of a year that saw the Red Devils earn a Champions League return, Carrick the permanent post and Bruno Fernandes player of the year honours.
The United skipper has been a pale imitation of that performer this term and questioned Carrick’s tactics as another Champions League trip ended in an eye-catching post-match player interview.
Lisandro Martinez lashed out at the club hierarchy after last week’s loss at Atletico Madrid and this time Fernandes said it was the staff’s decision at Como “not to press man-to-man and sometimes leave a little bit of space in behind”.
“We actually half-pressed man-to-man in the second half and then conceded a goal from that,” Carrick said in response.
“And there’s a little bit on whatever system you play, whatever tactics you play, if you don’t run, and you don’t run forward, and you don’t run back, you aren’t going to win.”