Michael Carrick has rejected the growing noise around his Manchester United future, calling the speculation \u201cridiculous\u201d after an uneven opening to the 2026\/27 season.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s campaign began with a defeat to Hull City, and the pressure has intensified following back-to-back setbacks against Manchester City and Brighton & Hove Albion. The derby loss came in the Premier League, while Wednesday\u2019s Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton was even more frustrating after Carrick\u2019s side allowed a two-goal lead to slip away.<\/p>\n
There has been no shortage of criticism, yet Carrick insists the talk about his job security is detached from reality. Speaking before Sunday\u2019s meeting with Fulham, he made clear that he understands the standards at the club and is focused on the work rather than the noise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the club, I know the role, I know what\u2019s expected here in terms of playing to a certain standard and achieving certain things on the pitch,\u201d the 45-year-old said ahead of Sunday\u2019s clash with Fulham.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of future and ownership and how long I\u2019ve got in the job, that\u2019s totally not in my thinking. It\u2019s ridiculous to think that way in the position I\u2019m in, that\u2019s just not on the radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s two or three games. It\u2019s two or three games too many because I really hate losing, but that doesn\u2019t mean the world caves in. In some minds it does, it can\u2019t for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later added: \u201cIt\u2019s not a catastrophe or a disaster. It\u2019s not the end of the world,\u201d a view supported by the team\u2019s underlying numbers.<\/p>\n
Despite the defeats, United\u2019s data is not as bleak as the results suggest. They have the second-highest expected goals total in the Premier League at 8.3, the most touches in the opposition box with 139, and only three sides have created more big chances. Defensively, only three teams have conceded less expected goals than their 5.2, while their expected points tally of seven is behind only Arsenal and Manchester City.<\/p>\n
With only six competitive matches played so far, Carrick still has time to steady the team, provided he remains in post. Since taking charge in January, he has lost only five matches and records a 61% win rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carrick has dismissed exit speculation after United\u2019s poor start, insisting the situation is not a disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1836,1162,1066],"class_list":["post-19760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19760","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=19760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}