Man United’s latest abject display spells the end for Michael Carrick after huge call backfires
For Michael Carrick, it is now a question of when, not if. When the axe falls, when he reverts from being head coach of Manchester United to a season-ticket holder, presumably despairing of the next manager, when he pays the price for a calamity of a start to this season.
Responsibility stretches from the boardroom to the dressing room but as Bournemouth eviscerated United with embarrassing ease, their buoyant supporters in a corner of Old Trafford targeted Carrick. “Sacked in the morning,” came the predictable chant. Whether or not they have got the timing right, the outcome appears inevitable.
United are in meltdown. Their worst start to a campaign for 40 years has just got worse. Humiliated by Como, hammered by Bournemouth, they have produced successive shocking displays. On the day Carrick, the nice guy of the dugout, tried to show his tough side by dropping captain Bruno Fernandes, the players he did select were a hapless rabble.
That should not detract from the excellence of Bournemouth. If United’s is a chastening fall from grace, theirs is a wonderful rise. Remarkably, ridiculously, Bournemouth have three 3-0 wins at Old Trafford against three different United managers in their last four visits. For good measure, they have a 3-0 victory against Ruben Amorim this week, since his move to AC Milan.
In 2008, when a United team with Carrick in the midfield were champions of Europe, Bournemouth had a 17-point deduction in League Two. Now they have beaten clubs with a combined 10 European Cups in the last four days. For the second time in four days, their fans sang: “It’s happening again.”
It happened again to Carrick, too. This was another shambolic performance, United’s second in five days and fifth in a season that is only 12 matches old. Their winless run has extended to eight games. Their clueless run arguably stretches back for 13 years.
After Carrick came out fighting in his press conference on Friday, his team did not. They subsided meekly. Carrick had delivered a five-and-a-half minute monologue two days earlier. In five-and-a-half first-half minutes United conceded twice to condemn themselves to a defeat that left them in 16th.
The Stretford End had begun backing Carrick, with several renditions of the song about him that dates back to his playing days. When they chorused it again on the final whistle, it felt a recognition it was all over, a tribute for his 12 years and 464 games as a player and a sense that a man who has behaved with dignity deserved better. He departed down the tunnel, patting the badge on his chest.
Then the players were booed as they followed. There were jeers at half-time, too. Before the end, with Old Trafford emptying, they had turned their attentions to the sporting director. “Jason Wilcox is a w***er”, came the message, showing they do not just blame Carrick.
But the biggest call of his reign backfired. After Fernandes turned on Carrick in his post-match interview in Italy, the manager dispensed with his captain. Carrick called it a “pure football” decision but it felt more personal when Mason Mount and Youri Tielemans started instead of him and Matheus Cunha, Joshua Zirkzee and Shea Lacey were brought on ahead of him.
Take the one man out of the one-man team and United were even more abject. A team without goals, creativity or pace also had clear defensive deficiencies.
This was all too simple for Bournemouth. Carrick had told United’s players to learn from the club’s most famous Ryan – Giggs – on Friday. Instead, they conceded to Rayan, the Brazilian volleying in a free kick taken by Justin Kluivert and conceded by Ayden Heaven, with a ludicrous lunge at Evanilson.
Bryan Mbeumo almost equalised straight away, Djordje Petrovic making a fine save. Instead, United were soon breached again.
Marcus Tavernier was left with a tap in when Adrien Truffert centred after Leny Yoro first dallied and then slipped. That was United, failing at the basics, making their own problems.
Evanilson scored the third, brilliantly, from an acute angle after Senne Lammens charged out of his box and missed the ball. United lacked a forward of the dynamism of Evanilson. They could not halt Rayan, precisely the sort of player they ought to have signed in recent years.
But then these days Bournemouth dispense the lessons to United. And they just don’t learn them.
