Michael Carrick Dismisses Talk of Ticking Clock at Manchester United
Michael Carrick has dismissed any talk about a ticking clock on his Manchester United tenure as “ridiculous” after what he insists are just “two or three” bad results.
United head to Fulham on Sunday at the end of a bruising week that has reopened old wounds at Old Trafford and stirred a familiar storm around the manager’s seat.
A brutal week, and the boos to match
First came a damaging league defeat to Manchester City at Old Trafford, made worse by the fact City played with 10 men from the 23rd minute and still left with the points. Then Brighton arrived in midweek and made unwanted history: the first side in 50 years to come from two goals down and win at Old Trafford in a cup tie, dumping United out of the Carabao Cup.
The response from the stands was fierce. Boos. Chants against the team. A fanbase that had started to believe in a corner turned last season suddenly staring at familiar chaos.
Carrick’s answer? He insists the noise is not getting inside his head.
“I know the club, I know the role, I know what's expected here in terms of playing to a certain standard and achieving certain things on the pitch,” he said before the trip to Craven Cottage. “I get all that.
“In terms of future and ownership and how long I've got in the job, that's totally not in my thinking. It's ridiculous to think that way in the position I'm in, that's just not on the radar.
“It's two or three games. It's two or three games too many because I really hate losing, but that doesn't mean the world caves in. In some minds it does, it can't for us.”
Board calm as form stalls
Inside the club, there is no suggestion from senior figures that Carrick is on the brink. The focus, privately, is on why so many players are underperforming compared with the standards they set under him last season, when United won 12 of 17 games in the second half of the campaign.
This season tells a different story. Two wins from six: a comeback victory over newly promoted Ipswich and a Champions League success against Azerbaijan champions Sabah FK. Hardly the platform a club of United’s scale expects.
“It's not a catastrophe or a disaster,” Carrick insisted. “It's not the end of the world.”
At United, though, everything sounds louder. Every setback feels like a crisis, every wobble treated as a collapse. Carrick knows that as well as anyone.
He accepts that problems at Old Trafford are routinely magnified, dressed up to look bigger than they are. He also makes it clear he still relishes the job and the club he served with distinction as a player and where he first stepped into coaching.
“There's great feelings, and there's obviously disappointments, and sometimes the smaller disappointments lead to being a little bit bigger,” he said. “It's just part of coping and being at this great football club.
“I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, genuinely.
“It's the best place for me to be, in part because of the times when it's maybe not going to plan. Sometimes they are best times to work your way through, to find out a few things and come out an awful lot stronger.”
Injuries, experience and the blame game
Outside the dressing room, the post-mortem has gone in familiar directions. Recruitment questions, particularly the lack of cover at left-back. Financial scrutiny, with debt levels and spending patterns under the microscope. Carrick’s relative inexperience as a manager. The inexperience of his staff, too, aside from assistant Steve Holland.
Carrick refuses to point fingers.
“It's not a blame game,” he said, while confirming Luke Shaw and new signing Carlos Baleba “have a chance” of being fit to face Fulham.
“We all search for things to look at and point at, or whatever reason it may be and find a blame. Blame me. No problem. I will take the responsibility.
“But it's not about blaming people. It's about us, it's about us finding solutions and being better. That's as a whole football club.”
The questions will not stop at Craven Cottage. The real test now is whether his players can.
