Manchester United manager Michael Carrick left the Old Trafford pitch on Sunday to the sound of his name being sung by the adoring home support, but he may never lead the team onto the field again. His players followed him and the message delivered to them and the club captain Bruno Fernandes, who was an unused substitute, was quite different. The 3-0 thumping by Bournemouth was a result that marked a 40-year low for the crisis club and plunged it to new depths – and the fans were determined to let United’s owners and playing staff know it.
The opening seven league matches marked United’s worst start since 1986. The latest defeat, their sixth of the season, leaves the club just a point above the relegation zone and without a win in eight matches in all competitions. Fernandes, the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Player of the Year last season, was left among the substitutes on Sunday as a result of criticising Carrick after Wednesday’s 4-1 humiliation at Como in the UEFA Champions League.
The Portuguese player has been the Red Devils’ darling since he arrived in 2020, and seemed to have sealed his place as a club legend in a time of darkness with his accolade achieved on the back of United’s third-place finish, which they have only twice bettered in 13 years. The award came as a result of his record number of assists in a Premier League season – all the more impressive in a side that lacked a spark anywhere else on the pitch. The upturn in fortunes under Carrick’s interim position last term, when he replaced Ruben Amorim in January, resulted in his full-time appointment in the summer.
A tenure that may now have run its course, with him and United’s best player seemingly at loggerheads. The United fans are famously loyal to their managers and players. Boos for anyone associated with the home side at Old Trafford were relatively unheard of until the last two seasons.
Now the boss receiving the adulation on exiting one of world football’s greatest stages – the Theatre of Dreams – may be the one on whom the curtain is being pulled. Fernandes is no villain in this piece, but United’s fans have delivered a clear message directly to the heart of the dressing room – sending it via the player who could do no wrong in the eyes of the supporters will leave the ears of every member of the squad ringing. Outplayed is one thing, but being outrun and outfought is another.
United’s history has been one of rebuilds and comebacks. They have known difficult days – their most successful manager Sir Alex Ferguson was on the verge of the sack in 1990 before winning the FA Cup and beginning one of the greatest runs of trophy-laden eras in football. Their wait for a league title stretched from 1967 – and the Holy Trinity of George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law – to 1993, when Ferguson’s inspired signing of Eric Cantona ignited glory days even the biggest club in the world at the time had never seen.
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