“Signals of confidence.” That is how Fabrizio Romano described Manchester United’s current stance towards Michael Carrick, cutting through a week of coverage that had framed the manager as being pushed towards the exit.

The club have taken only five points from their opening five Premier League matches of the 2026-27 season and have been knocked out of the Carabao Cup. Yet Romano reported on 5 October that INEOS are not preparing a change, with the dressing room, in the club’s reading of it, still fully behind the 45-year-old.

“Manchester United is sending signals of confidence when it comes to Michael Carrick for one reason above all: the club feels it, believes the players are 100% behind the manager, there’s no fracture or break,” Romano wrote in his column for Football365.

Numbers that still worry Old Trafford

That backing came with a caveat. In the same column Romano laid out why the picture is uncomfortable even while the chair is not yet shaking.

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“But three defeats, two draws, and just two wins (at home to Ipswich and Sabah) in the last seven games are too few to remain safe.”

Two names surfaced in the same report as fallback options. Romano wrote that “the names of Conte and Julian Nagelsmann, available after leaving Germany, are circulating for various reasons,” adding that the former Bayern Munich head coach had been on United’s list “years ago.”

Romano’s framing was that these are circulating names, not approaches. The club, he said, “persists, placing their faith in Carrick, hoping to improve and reverse the trend starting with the home match against Tottenham.”

That line matters. TeamTalk’s write-up of Romano framed the next stretch of fixtures as the “decisive weeks” that will determine whether the current confidence survives.

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Conte’s “shine once more” pitch

Separately, Antonio Conte has given an interview to The Athletic that read as an open application for a project with history behind it, and the timing, shortly before Romano’s column, has fed the speculation rather than dampened it.

“If you go to a club where the history speaks for itself, a history made up of trophies, league titles and victories, you can only honour that history in one way: by having the ambition to bring that club back,” Conte told The Athletic.

“I’d like to go to one of these clubs to dust off that history and make it shine once more.”

Conte did not name Manchester United. He also said he would now consider taking over a club mid-season “if it’s worth it” for the right project, a position he had previously ruled out.

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No contact, and a second name on the board

The point Romano kept returning to is that these are open-market names, not negotiations. A separate LiveScore write-up of TeamTalk’s reporting placed Eddie Howe in the frame of candidates INEOS have previously examined, with no contact made with any alternative coach.

For now the only move INEOS have signalled, via Romano, is to let Carrick keep working. The next match is Tottenham at home at Old Trafford.

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