Michael Carrick has urged Manchester United supporters not to panic and overreact despite Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Hull City.
Manchester United had a horrible opening day performance at the MKM Stadium and were beaten by first-half goals from Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy.
The loss has already brought plenty of criticism by Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney, but Carrick believes one poor afternoon shouldn’t wipe away the progress made over the previous six months.
Carrick refuses to panic after Hull loss
Manchester United had gone a long period without losing many games before the opening day setback at Hull.
“We haven’t lost many games in six, seven months,” the United boss said.
Carrick accepted that questions will naturally follow such a poor result, but he doesn’t believe the defeat means the whole team suddenly needs to be rebuilt.
“So again, I get it, we’ve lost today and I understand there’s questions to be asked, but it doesn’t mean everything’s wrong because we’ve lost a game.”
There were still some things Carrick liked from his side, even if they were overshadowed by the result.
“We’ve done a lot of good things and we did some good things today, but it gets lost, and I understand it’ll get lost, but it doesn’t get lost from our point of view.”
That doesn’t mean Carrick is ignoring what went wrong.
One area he clearly wants United to improve is their ability to deal with different tactical setups. Hull caused problems with their shape and United never really found a consistent answer.
“There’s definitely issues playing against different systems, so we have got to find the answers for that.”
United are hurting, but Michael Carrick wants calm
Michael Carrick himself accepted that his calmness can’t be mistaken for a lack of frustration.
“I’m talking to you quite calm, but I’m not exactly calm inside and enjoying the day, you know?”
Michael Carrick has been around Manchester United long enough to understand the reaction that comes with a bad result. His answer is to keep working rather than allow the disappointment to turn into panic.
“You don’t get to play here for a long time without just going day by day, the results, the ups and downs, but you just carry on as normal.”
For Carrick, that doesn’t mean pretending Saturday didn’t matter.
“It just doesn’t mean that we all have to shout and scream and come out and create some chaos just because of it.”
There is plenty of frustration inside the dressing room, according to the United boss.
“Inside we’re hurting. The boys know we need to get better, but the calmness doesn’t mean that there’s no emotion in it, for sure.”
Carrick knows the Hull defeat was poor, but he also believes the best response is a week of proper work rather than a rush to conclusions.
