Michael Carrick\u2019s early spell in charge has already been marked by frustration, and the latest setback has only intensified the scrutiny. A poor opening-day loss to Hull City set an uneasy tone, before victories over Ipswich Town and Sabah FK briefly offered relief. That improvement did not last long.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s collapse from 2-0 up at home to Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday night pushed the situation to a new low. After the final whistle, Carrick admitted: \u201cWe\u2019ve gone out of the cup tonight, and the feeling around the place feels bigger than that,\u201d as the sense of unease around the club deepened further.<\/p>\n
He was then booed off by the supporters who remained to see the end of a 3-2 defeat, although Carrick tried to lower the temperature. \u201cI don\u2019t feel under pressure,\u201d he said. Even so, the schedule now offers little room for error. If United cannot find a response soon, the next few weeks could become increasingly uncomfortable for the manager.<\/p>\n
The immediate chance to recover comes on Sunday with a visit to Fulham\u2019s Craven Cottage. United then face Tottenham at Old Trafford before the fixtures turn quickly to Europe and back again, with Atl\u00e9tico Madrid away, Leeds away and Como away also on the list.<\/p>\n
Carrick insisted there is still belief within the squad. \u201cOf course we can turn it around, we have got some really good players,\u201d he said. \u201cIt feels bad because we haven\u2019t had a great week or two, or three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fulham, meanwhile, have also struggled. \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa has taken just one point from his first four Premier League matches, and his side have conceded heavily despite showing plenty of ambition in the final third. United will know this is a match that could swing either way, but they also know failure to win would make the international break feel much longer than it should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United’s poor run has intensified scrutiny on Carrick before a difficult sequence of matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1754,1836,1047],"class_list":["post-19615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-2026-27-fixtures","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}