Mauricio Pochettino has walked into a difficult situation at Manchester United after Michael Carrick was finally removed following a poor start to the 2026\/27 campaign. The new manager inherits a squad short on confidence, with the opening 15 matches offering little encouragement.<\/p>\n
That backdrop makes a review of the players unavoidable. Several have struggled badly, while a few have at least offered partial reasons for hope.<\/p>\n
Senne Lammens has gone backwards after an encouraging first season, with his confidence seemingly damaged by a costly mistake for Belgium at the World Cup. His error in the chaotic 4-4 draw with Aston Villa underlined the dip, although the protection in front of him has also been weak. The backup goalkeeper, signed on a free transfer, has barely featured and made an unconvincing competitive debut in the Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.<\/p>\n
Diogo Dalot has once again looked like a player United should not be leaning on so heavily, while Harry Maguire\u2019s limitations are exposed when the side is under pressure. Leny Yoro has found the Premier League\u2019s speed and intensity difficult to handle, and Lisandro Mart\u00ednez has produced three damaging moments, including his comical own goal against Fulham and his red card against Chelsea.<\/p>\n
There have been steadier figures. Noussair Mazraoui remains unspectacular but reliable enough, while Kobbie Mainoo has continued to do his job in midfield. Bruno Fernandes has delivered nine goal involvements and a hat trick against Ipswich Town, though his criticism of Carrick after the defeat to Como was hardly ideal.<\/p>\n
New arrivals such as Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba have all found the environment tough, for different reasons. Up front, Bryan Mbeumo has had to carry too much responsibility because of Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko\u2019s injury, while Matheus Cunha has at least provided energy and decisive moments in comeback wins.<\/p>\n
Joshua Zirkzee has offered some impact from the bench, Marcus Rashford\u2019s return has produced very little, and Amad Diallo\u2019s work rate has outstripped his end product. One bright note is Shea Lacey, who scored and assisted against Brighton in his only start and could earn more attention under Pochettino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pochettino inherits a faltering United squad, and several players have already raised real concerns this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1162,59,182],"class_list":["post-22476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-analytics","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22476","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=22476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}