Senne Lammens was the one asked to clean up the mess. At his pre-match press conference before Sunday’s Premier League trip to Bournemouth, the Belgian goalkeeper told Sky Sports that the dressing room was still with Michael Carrick, even as the captain had used a live television microphone to say the opposite.

“For me personally, I think it is,” Lammens said when asked whether the squad was united behind the manager.

“We’re all together behind the coach, as a staff, players, front office.”

Sports Illustrated frames the goalkeeper’s defence as emotion rather than substance, a reaction to frustration rather than real dissent, with players said to be processing the 4-1 Champions League defeat at Como on Wednesday rather than turning on the manager.

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What Fernandes actually said

Fernandes did not aim his anger at his teammates. He pointed it straight at Carrick and the coaching staff.

“It’s a decision from the staff to not press man to man and sometimes leave space behind,” the captain told Sky Sports after the Como loss.

Asked directly whether the manager had got the tactics wrong, he said the review was not his job: “That’s on the manager and staff to see it, not me.”

He called for a braver, higher press and said United were still clinging to past glories rather than confronting the current team’s problems.

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Carrick points at the players

Carrick’s own answer, when told of the criticism, was to put the problem back on his players.

“You can’t turn it on and off and you can’t choose when you want to perform,” he said.

He added that whatever system a side plays, “if you don’t run and you don’t run forward and you don’t run back, you ain’t gonna win.”

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher was sharper still. Speaking on CBS Sports Golazo, he called the captain’s intervention “a disgrace” and said it was “not what a Manchester United captain should be.”

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Fernandes was not the first senior United player to go public either. Earlier this autumn, Lisandro Martinez had pointed the finger at technical director Jason Wilcox over the club’s summer recruitment, in the wake of a defeat to Atletico Madrid.

Hierarchy begins sounding out successors

Carrick, 45, has won two of his first 11 matches this season and is seven games without a win. He signed a contract extension through to 2028 in May.

BBC Sport reports that the United hierarchy has begun identifying possible replacements. Carrick takes his team to Bournemouth later today.

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