Michael Carrick insists Manchester United's recent struggles are "not a catastrophe or a disaster" and dismissed talk of pressure on his position as "ridiculous". Days after a controversial 1-0 home defeat by rivals Manchester City, United surrendered a two-goal lead to crash out of the Carabao Cup with a 3-2 loss to Brighton at Old Trafford, as boos rang out from the Stretford End while Carrick and his players trudged off the pitch. With just four points from their opening four Premier League games, United need a win at Fulham on Sunday to avoid heading into the international break under mounting pressure, with the familiar feeling that another season could already be slipping away.
But Carrick has called for perspective after back-to-back defeats have put him under pressure just weeks into the season. "It's not a catastrophe or a disaster," said Carrick. "It's not the end of the world.
We're not in the place where we've gone on an awful long run of horrific results, you know? "We've lost a couple of games recently and we feel like we've started and we've been in all the games that we've played, if not been the better team at the start of games, so it's not like we're having a real struggle all the time. "We've done a lot of good things in them to put ourselves in really good positions in the games we've been in, so the belief certainly comes from that.
"Of the good things that we've done, that gets totally lost in some ways in the surrounding feeling, but it doesn't get lost by us." Sky Sports News reporter Danyal Khan assesses the choppy waters Manchester United boss Michael Carrick has found himself in after back-to-back defeats. Carrick won 12 of his 17 games in charge last season, but United have already suffered defeat to newly promoted Hull this campaign, been pegged back twice in a 2-2 draw at Everton, and fallen to a City side that had Phil Foden sent off in the 23rd minute last weekend. Wednesday's defeat was the first time United had lost at home after taking a 2-0 lead since 1976.
"History tells you that any team that's successful goes through periods when you have to come through it and improve," Carrick added. "We've had a small period when it hasn't been exactly what we want it to be. "I was expecting a point when we would go through it, it was going to come.
There was going to be a time when you don't get everything out of it that you want. It's how you work through it, how you react, keep doing the right things and believe you will come through it." Since taking charge last January, Carrick has maintained a calm demeanour and this week insisted that the pressure does not affect him. Asked if the X-rated chants coming from the Stretford End on Wednesday night hurt on a personal level, Carrick said: "We don't like losing matches.
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