Man Utd board held emergency meeting before sacking boss as Michael Carrick parallels emerge

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Manchester United fans have seen it all before following a poor start to the season under Michael Carrick

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It's hard to ignore the prospect of history repeating itself following Manchester United's stuttering start to the season under Michael Carrick.

You know the script: Popular former player jettisoned in to lift a squad which had just seen an outspoken Portuguese head coach sacked.

Said coach leads an upturn as interim boss and lands the job full-time to much fanfare, only to struggle when the pressure mounts and the results tail off. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

For Carrick replacing Ruben Amorim, read Ole Gunnar Solskjaer coming in for Jose Mourinho. It should be too early in the season for the United board to consider a change.

But Sir Jim Ratcliffe's INEOS group, which runs the football side of the club, and the Glazers will be concerned after two defeats in four league games were followed by the Carabao Cup collapse against Brighton.

In Solskjaer's case, the final straw was a 4-1 defeat at Watford in November 2021, the team's fourth defeat in five games. The credit the Norwegian had in the bank for leading the team to a runner-up finish - albeit a distant one - was running out.

An emergency board meeting, which lasted several hours, was called after the Watford game, with Joel Glazer rubber-stamping the decision to dispense with Solskjaer. Almost five years on, Carrick could really do with a victory to take into the extended international break, which begins following Sunday's visit to struggling Fulham.

He claims not to feel under pressure, but he acknowledged the mounting external scrutiny after the Brighton humiliation. Carrick pointed to Everton's last-gasp equaliser and Manchester City's controversial derby winner, but he knows a reaction is needed.

> He said: "Of course we can turn it around. We’ve got some really good players and it feels bad at the moment because we haven't had a great week, or two or three weeks.

> "But it doesn't mean you can't win another game of football quickly, so there's that side of it. I mean, the players have shown before what they're capable of doing and we have as a group.

> "It doesn’t count for much; it's always about what happens next. What you're doing in the moment, what you're doing next, so that's the ultimate challenge. Always has been here, always will be here.

> "It's all about what you do next and dealing with the moments, and the ups and the downs. We've certainly got to deal with this moment in a good way."

But the way things panned out with Solskjaer means Carrick cannot afford to relax, regardless of the esteem in which he is held.

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