{"id":1176315,"date":"2026-08-29T23:46:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1176315\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T23:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:46:27","slug":"carrick-dismisses-lazy-manchester-united-criticism-and-defends-fernandes-leadership-manchester-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1176315\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrick dismisses \u2018lazy\u2019 Manchester United criticism and defends Fernandes\u2019 leadership | Manchester United"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Carrick has said it was \u201clazy and easy\u201d to say everything was wrong with Manchester United<\/a> after the opening-day defeat at Hull.<\/p>\n

United lost 2-0 in a tame display<\/a> and the manager was asked whether his captain, Bruno Fernandes, and Youri Tielemans, Belgium\u2019s captain, had shown the leadership that might have affected the performance and result.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one game,\u201d Carrick said. \u201cI think there\u2019s enough leadership in our dressing room that we\u2019ll have it throughout the season. Just because we lose a game doesn\u2019t just mean leadership [is the reason]. I got \u2018passion\u2019 thrown at me after the game; it\u2019s not just that. You lose two set plays like we did [for the goals], it changes the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carrick was asked what the reason was for the performance. \u201cYou\u2019ve watched football a long time, right? Teams lose games and win games, and it\u2019s not just because you try or you don\u2019t try. There\u2019s all sorts of different reasons. I don\u2019t have to give you the total reason, because we know what we\u2019re trying to improve on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old was pressed to offer one factor why the defeat occurred. \u201cI think it\u2019s so easy and lazy to just \u2026 a team loses a game, everything\u2019s wrong: this is wrong, this is wrong, not trying enough, not enough passion,\u201d Carrick said. \u201cIt\u2019s like the obvious answer. So, there\u2019s a lot that goes into a game of football that can take [the result away] from [you].<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve probably played like that and won games, and everyone goes: \u2018What a great team, what a great coach, what a great load of players\u2019 \u2013 when we find a way to win 1-0. So, from my perspective, when you\u2019re analysing it, it\u2019s not the feeling [that the inverse is true]. We\u2019ve got to dig deeper than that and understand the details of it. And we don\u2019t get carried away when we win certain games because we know it\u2019s not been perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

United host Ipswich on Sunday without Carlos Baleba, who signed on Tuesday for \u00a370m from Brighton<\/a> but has an ankle injury that may rule him out for three or more weeks. This means the midfielder may not make his debut until Tottenham\u2019s visit on 10 October, after the international break.<\/p>\n

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United have admired the Cameroon international since last summer so Carrick was asked why the 22-year-old was signed so late in the window. He said: \u201cIt\u2019s not always straightforward, and things have got to drop. So we\u2019ve been patient. We wanted to get the right players in, that fit the group, that will take us forward, and Carlos is definitely one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Carrick has said it was \u201clazy and easy\u201d to say everything was wrong with Manchester United after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1176316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":["post-1176315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manchester","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-manchester","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117181468784470790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1176316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}