Man Utd have lost three of their first six games of the season and Michael Carrick is under pressure as head coach.
Michael Carrick laughed off speculation over his Manchester United future as “ridiculous” and said he would get more than a couple of games to prove to the club’s ownership that he is the man to turn it around, but he is happy to continue taking the blame for a dismal start to the campaign.
United have lost three of their six games in all competitions this season and a dramatic collapse against Brighton in the Carabao Cup in midweek has piled the pressure on the 45-year-old.
Carrick’s side led 2-0 against the Seagulls but surrendered the advantage and lost from that position at Old Trafford for the first time in 50 years. United were booed off the pitch and Carrick and the players faced derogatory chants from the Stretford End.
It feels like they need a result at Fulham this weekend, but Carrick shot down the idea that he needed results quickly to convince Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers that he remained the right man for the job.
“I think that’ll be a lot longer than one or two games of results,” he said. “I understand, first of all, taking away all that, that’s irrelevant for me.
“I know the club, I know the role, I know what’s expected here in terms of playing to a certain standard, playing at a certain level, achieving certain things on the pitch, so I get all that.
“In terms of future and ownership and how long I’ve got in the job, I’m thinking one part of it, like how long have I got, it’s ridiculous to think that way in a position that I’m in, that’s just not on the radar.
“I understand what we need to achieve and where we need to be as a football club for the owners, what they expect, for the supporters as much as anything, I get all that.
“It’s two or three games that we haven’t had certain results, and two or three games too many because I really hate losing, but that doesn’t mean that the world caves in. In some minds it does, it can’t for us, because we’ve got to perform.”
Carrick has taken the responsibility for United’s rocky start to the season on his own shoulders rather than deflecting criticism and told critics he should continue to be the lightning rod for any brickbats thrown United’s way.
“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “It’s my responsibility. I’m fine with that. It’s not a blame game. It’s not a blame game. We all search for things to look at and point at and find a blame.
“Sometimes it gets almost like too much of a thing to want to find someone to blame or something to blame. Blame me, no problem. I’ll take the responsibility, whatever it is.
“But it’s not about blaming people, it’s about finding solutions and being better, and that’s as a whole football club, as a group of players, as staff, as owners, supporters, it’s a whole collective thing, and you can put it in different directions, you can worry about different things, it’s about what you focus on.
“‘I’m totally happy taking responsibility, absolutely no problem with that, it doesn’t bother me. I just know where we want to get to and we want to get there fast.”
Carrick is a veteran of 464 games as a player for United and has remained a fan of the club, and as difficult as things feel right now, he maintains the belief that it is a “great football club” and that he is in the right place to turn it around.
“One hundred per cent it does, yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, genuinely. It’s the best place for me to be, so in part of the times when it’s maybe not going to plan, that’s sometimes the best times to work your way through, find out a few things and come out an awful lot stronger.”
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