Carrick convinced Man Utd will have a good season

Five points from five games. Bottom half of the table. Ten points off the pace at the top. On paper, Manchester United’s start to the season under Michael Carrick reads like the beginning of a crisis. The head coach sees it differently.

A 1-1 draw at Fulham did little to settle the nerves on the surface. Lisandro Martínez turned the ball into his own net to give the hosts the lead, and it took a deflected, unlikely strike from Matheus Cunha deep into stoppage time to rescue anything from Craven Cottage. It followed a Manchester derby defeat and a Carabao Cup exit to Brighton in the space of a week, results that have left United’s campaign looking shakier by the day.

Carrick’s argument is that the numbers are lying, at least a little. He points to a pattern rather than a slump: an own goal here, a contentious decision there, chances created but not converted. Fulham’s goalkeeper Bernd Leno had the game of his life. United hit the woodwork twice. None of that shows up in the table, but all of it, Carrick believes, explains why five points feels harsher than it should.

“We are not happy about not winning the game, but there are things to take from this game, for sure,” he told MUTV and Sky Sports.

What pleased him most had nothing to do with the scoreline. It was the reaction. Rather than wilt after falling behind, United kept pushing, kept believing, and eventually found a route back into the game through Cunha’s intervention.

“The way we responded to going down was really pleasing,” Carrick said. “The boys were really positive and played with good purpose.”

He was careful not to lean too heavily on misfortune as an excuse. A late concession against Everton, a disputed goal conceded to City, now an own goal at Fulham — Carrick can list the moments that have gone against his side, but he stopped short of blaming them for the position United find themselves in.

“There are parts we can do better,” he said. “We need to learn a lot from this first chapter of the season really, and we need to be better, that is pretty clear.”

The international break arrives at a useful moment, giving Carrick a pause before what he expects to be a defining stretch of fixtures. He described the opening weeks as merely the first phase of something longer, not a verdict on the season itself.

“This first chapter feels a bit of a sprint,” Carrick said. “We wanted more points, we haven’t quite got them, but there’s still a lot of encouragement from me moving forward.”

Whether that optimism survives contact with United’s next run of games remains to be seen. For now, Carrick is holding his ground.

“I’m convinced we’ll have a good season,” he said. “We’re having a spell that feels bigger than it actually is to the outside. We’ll get back to winning football matches, and we’ll be alright.”