Michael Carrick walked out of Elland Road on Sunday with another draw, another dropped lead and another week of pressure to answer for. He also walked out convinced that something had shifted.
“It felt like a bit of a fresh start, if I’m honest, today in where we’re at and accepting it and doing something about it,” Carrick told reporters after the match.
The context behind that line is harsh. United have won once in their first seven Premier League matches, a record of W1 D4 L2 that leaves them on seven points, their fewest at this stage since 1986-87. They have been winless in the league since August.
A different midfield spine
The fresh start Carrick kept returning to was built on a reshuffled midfield. Carlos Baleba and Andrey Santos were handed starts in the engine room, and the manager made clear afterwards that both had earned the right to keep their places.
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“They’re both young players adapting to life at this football club and I thought both of them were terrific today,” Carrick said of the pair. “I thought they both did really well in midweek. That’s a massive positive for us.”
Bryan Mbeumo put the visitors ahead in the 35th minute. Six minutes into the second half, Dominic Calvert-Lewin finished off a Leeds move to level the score at 1-1, and United could not find a way back through.
Carrick leans on the dressing room
Carrick’s argument through his media round was that the players are still with him, however bleak the table reads.
“It definitely shows that the boys are desperate to do well for each other as much as anything else and how much they appreciate playing for this football club,” he said.
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Six days earlier, with United on six points from six matches, he had used a similar line: “The boys are hungry and eager to put things right.”
Fans running out of patience
Gary Neville noted three separate rounds of booing during the previous weekend’s 1-1 home draw with Tottenham, when United conceded a late equaliser to 10-man Spurs. The Leeds result stretched the winless Premier League run to five.
Carrick, who took over at Old Trafford at the start of the year, next takes Manchester United to Como in the Champions League on Wednesday, 21 October.
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