Michael Carrick insisted he didn’t care if he was under pressure after overseeing a Man Utd defeat at Old Trafford having led 2-0 – the first time that has happened in 50 years.
Michael Carrick challenged his Manchester United players to show they were tough enough to cope with the scrutiny of playing for the club after they were booed off at Old Trafford following a defeat to Brighton.
United threw away a 2-0 lead at Old Trafford, having seen early goals from Shea Lacey and Mason Mount wiped out by an excellent Brighton side.
The Stretford End booed the players as they walked off at full-time and chanted ‘what the f****** hell was that?’, with this defeat a major blow to Carrick and United’s third in just six games in all competitions this season.
Carrick gave short shrift to a question as to whether he was under pressure after a dreadful start to the season but told the players they had to show they can deal with the criticism and the negativity that is now coming their way.
“We all know it’s there,” he said. “We know it’s there whether it’s good or whether it’s not good. How you deal with that is the important thing.
“Being here toughens you up over a period of time, and it depends how you deal with it. You’ve got to deal with it in a way where you can cope with it and you can bring out the best in yourself, and whatever, however you do that, with your motivation and the confidence deep within yourself to, as a whole group I’m talking about here, that we know we can win football matches and that’s what we are here for is to win.
“It feels pretty quick, as I just said about the couple of little things that go one way and we’ve gone out of the cup tonight, and the feeling around the place feels bigger than that.”
Carrick could do no wrong last season as a run of 12 wins and three draws from 17 games in charge steered United back into the Champions League, but the pressure has mounted rapidly this season.
It might be too early to say the 45-year-old faces a must-win game at Fulham this weekend, but the pressure is certainly mounting, although Carrick claimed he wasn’t feeling it.
“I don’t feel under pressure,” he said. “Either way, that doesn’t bother me one bit. It generally doesn’t bother me one bit. I understand what goes on outside and how the world works, but it doesn’t bother me.”
The head coach backed his players to show the resolve and the stomach for the fight to turn around a hugely disappointing start to the season.
“Of course we can turn it around,” he said. “We’ve got some really good players and it feels bad at the moment because we haven’t had a great week, or two or three weeks.
“But it doesn’t mean you can’t win another game of football quickly. So there’s that side of it, the players have shown before what they’re capable of doing and we have as a group.”
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