MICHAEL CARRICK WAS wet through and Manchester United were beaten all ends up by Como in the rain.
Saturated and defeated, Carrick began the slow, sodden walk of shame from the dugout towards the travelling supporters behind the goal where the home side had scored one of their four goals in this humiliating defeat.
The United boss ignored his players to make a beeline for the fans. He held his hands up limply, cautiously as if pleading for forgiveness.
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This broken soul in smart club-sponsored Paul Smith attire could have been any one of his predecessors. Ruben Amorim, Erik ten Hag, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho Louis van Gaal or David Moyes. They all had this long walk.
They are the six other permanent managers since Alex Ferguson departed Old Trafford 13 years ago.
Former players Ryan Giggs, Darren Fletcher, Ruud van Nistelrooy and even Carrick himself five years ago also had spells as caretaker boss.
It was another of those, an outsider in Ralf Rangnick who took over from Carrick in December 2021 on an interim basis until May 2022, that said the club needed “surgery of the open heart” to repair the problems properly.
The lecherous Glazer family must have felt like they’d struck gold on the donor list when Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos delivered the Americans an infusion of €1.5 billion to their own personal wealth for 25% of a club they had first saddled with €600 million worth of debt in a leveraged buyout 21 years ago.
Two decades on and all the waste was laid bare in Como of all places. Waste on loan repayments, rocketing interest rates and a credit facility.
Waste on paying for and then paying off failed managers. Waste on signing and then rewarding even worse players. Waste on placing former Manchester City executives and administrators in positions of power that are now leading another ruinous campaign.
This is the waste of a lifetime for Manchester United.
This season is now threatening to sink to even greater depths of embarrassment for a club that next May looks like it will celebrate a decade with only two major trophies. Ten Hag’s League and FA Cup triumphs are looking like even mightier triumphs by the day.
For Carrick, as he trudged to those fans, there was no baying mob. Between the weather and the performance of their team there was no good reason to remain.
This United side are so weak, so spineless that they can’t even do it on a wet, Wednesday night in Como, let alone Stoke.
“It’s a decision from the staff to not press man to man and sometimes leave a little bit of space behind,” captain Bruno Fernandes said in the aftermath, passing the responsibility much faster than he moved on the pitch beforehand.
When asked about the side’s tactical set-up, he replied: “That’s on the manager and staff to see it, it’s not on me. I just said that I think sometimes we have to be more brave under pressure, trying to take a risk of getting that press very high and making them uncomfortable.
“As they did to us, as you saw, the centre-back was coming to mark me all the way into in my own half. I think sometimes we had to do that as a team and we were not really able to do it.
“A team that wants to play through the middle and likes these small connections, if you give them too much time on the ball to think and to rotate in the middle of the pitch then they create a big space on the outside, that’s what they did and the first goal comes from that.”
You didn’t have to squint to read between the lines of Carrick’s comments afterwards, either.
“Everybody has got to take responsibility for that. I 100% take responsibility for the overall team and performance. It stops with me. But as a supporter of this football club for so long, and I care a lot about this football club, to see it perform like that is unacceptable.
“You can’t choose when you want to perform or when you don’t want to perform. Or when you give absolutely everything or when you maybe don’t. Until you do that you’re not going to win football matches.”
It’s seven without a win for Carrick.
Some celebrated the fact that United hadn’t been pummelled in their last Champions League outing by Atletico Madrid when they conceded after less than 50 seconds. Some cited it as an example this United team were capable of sticking together and being resolute.
Como showed that to be a complete fallacy. They broke the deadlock after two minutes and, unlike Atletico, played with a purpose United simply couldn’t contend with.
They wanted goals and they wanted to inflict pain. United’s players were too slow and empty-minded to do anything other than embrace the suffering.
Carrick said it felt like “a fresh start” after United took the lead away to Leeds last weekend but had to make do with a point. That result came in the aftermath of Lisandro Martinez going public with his anger at sporting director Jason Wilcox and the club’s lack of activity in the summer transfer market.
Fernandes wasn’t quite as acerbic but his words were sharp, cutting to the heart of the malaise.
And so that fresh start once again has a familiar stench.
Waste of a lifetime laid bare on another pitiful night for Manchester United
MICHAEL CARRICK WAS wet through and Manchester United were beaten all ends up by Como in the rain.
Saturated and defeated, Carrick began the slow, sodden walk of shame from the dugout towards the travelling supporters behind the goal where the home side had scored one of their four goals in this humiliating defeat.
The United boss ignored his players to make a beeline for the fans. He held his hands up limply, cautiously as if pleading for forgiveness.
This broken soul in smart club-sponsored Paul Smith attire could have been any one of his predecessors. Ruben Amorim, Erik ten Hag, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho Louis van Gaal or David Moyes. They all had this long walk.
They are the six other permanent managers since Alex Ferguson departed Old Trafford 13 years ago.
Former players Ryan Giggs, Darren Fletcher, Ruud van Nistelrooy and even Carrick himself five years ago also had spells as caretaker boss.
It was another of those, an outsider in Ralf Rangnick who took over from Carrick in December 2021 on an interim basis until May 2022, that said the club needed “surgery of the open heart” to repair the problems properly.
The lecherous Glazer family must have felt like they’d struck gold on the donor list when Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos delivered the Americans an infusion of €1.5 billion to their own personal wealth for 25% of a club they had first saddled with €600 million worth of debt in a leveraged buyout 21 years ago.
Two decades on and all the waste was laid bare in Como of all places. Waste on loan repayments, rocketing interest rates and a credit facility.
Waste on paying for and then paying off failed managers. Waste on signing and then rewarding even worse players. Waste on placing former Manchester City executives and administrators in positions of power that are now leading another ruinous campaign.
This is the waste of a lifetime for Manchester United.
This season is now threatening to sink to even greater depths of embarrassment for a club that next May looks like it will celebrate a decade with only two major trophies. Ten Hag’s League and FA Cup triumphs are looking like even mightier triumphs by the day.
For Carrick, as he trudged to those fans, there was no baying mob. Between the weather and the performance of their team there was no good reason to remain.
This United side are so weak, so spineless that they can’t even do it on a wet, Wednesday night in Como, let alone Stoke.
“It’s a decision from the staff to not press man to man and sometimes leave a little bit of space behind,” captain Bruno Fernandes said in the aftermath, passing the responsibility much faster than he moved on the pitch beforehand.
When asked about the side’s tactical set-up, he replied: “That’s on the manager and staff to see it, it’s not on me. I just said that I think sometimes we have to be more brave under pressure, trying to take a risk of getting that press very high and making them uncomfortable.
“As they did to us, as you saw, the centre-back was coming to mark me all the way into in my own half. I think sometimes we had to do that as a team and we were not really able to do it.
“A team that wants to play through the middle and likes these small connections, if you give them too much time on the ball to think and to rotate in the middle of the pitch then they create a big space on the outside, that’s what they did and the first goal comes from that.”
You didn’t have to squint to read between the lines of Carrick’s comments afterwards, either.
“Everybody has got to take responsibility for that. I 100% take responsibility for the overall team and performance. It stops with me. But as a supporter of this football club for so long, and I care a lot about this football club, to see it perform like that is unacceptable.
“You can’t choose when you want to perform or when you don’t want to perform. Or when you give absolutely everything or when you maybe don’t. Until you do that you’re not going to win football matches.”
It’s seven without a win for Carrick.
Some celebrated the fact that United hadn’t been pummelled in their last Champions League outing by Atletico Madrid when they conceded after less than 50 seconds. Some cited it as an example this United team were capable of sticking together and being resolute.
Como showed that to be a complete fallacy. They broke the deadlock after two minutes and, unlike Atletico, played with a purpose United simply couldn’t contend with.
They wanted goals and they wanted to inflict pain. United’s players were too slow and empty-minded to do anything other than embrace the suffering.
Carrick said it felt like “a fresh start” after United took the lead away to Leeds last weekend but had to make do with a point. That result came in the aftermath of Lisandro Martinez going public with his anger at sporting director Jason Wilcox and the club’s lack of activity in the summer transfer market.
Fernandes wasn’t quite as acerbic but his words were sharp, cutting to the heart of the malaise.
And so that fresh start once again has a familiar stench.
Champions League Grim Manchester United October Soccer