Michael Carrick\u2019s position at Manchester United is becoming harder to defend after Saturday\u2019s 2-0 loss to Chelsea stretched the club\u2019s winless sequence to nine matches in all competitions.<\/p>\n
That run matches a low point last seen under Sir Alex Ferguson, but the comparison only goes so far. Ferguson\u2019s side were two years into his spell when they went nine games without a victory, and even then they managed to draw seven of those matches before eventually ending the sequence with a 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic.<\/p>\n
Carrick\u2019s case is more damaging because the numbers are sharper and the performances have been poorer over a longer stretch. United have now lost six of their last nine matches in all competitions and drawn the other three. The 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth had already sparked the view that his time could be up, leading to crisis talks before the decision was made to give him another chance.<\/p>\n
Against Chelsea, though, there were at least signs of a response early on. United were the better side for the first 45 minutes, with Carrick apparently getting a positive reaction from his players at the start of the match. That opening spell is unlikely, however, to settle the wider debate around his future.<\/p>\n
There is clear acceptance at the club that both results and performances are not meeting the required level, and officials are already weighing up possible alternatives, including Eddie Howe and Julian Nagelsmann.<\/p>\n
Even so, Carrick may feel he was not entirely betrayed by his own approach. Some of the damage at Chelsea came from individual mistakes, and Lisandro Mart\u00ednez\u2019s decision to lead with his arm as he jumped with Wesley Fofana cannot be laid at the manager\u2019s door. After the Bournemouth defeat, there were also suggestions that some at Old Trafford recognised the players\u2019 share of responsibility in the slump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United\u2019s winless run has deepened, and Carrick\u2019s future is now under growing scrutiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1083],"tags":[1836,59],"class_list":["post-22151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-man-utd","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22151","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=22151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}