INEOS back Carrick despite pressure mounting after Atletico Madrid defeat

Manchester United’s owners are standing by manager Michael Carrick for now, despite a wretched start to the season that has seen the club collect just six points from their first six Premier League fixtures and suffer a 2-0 defeat away to Atletico Madrid.

Reporting for The Athletic, David Ornstein confirmed that INEOS are “right behind” Carrick, while acknowledging the former midfielder is operating under significant pressure. “I don’t know of any desire to get rid of Carrick,” Ornstein wrote. “On the contrary, they are right behind him and want him to succeed. But you’re right behind somebody at any club until you’re not.”

The defeat in Madrid came on the back of a damaging weekend at Old Trafford, where United dropped two points against bottom-placed Tottenham Hotspur — who had been reduced to 10 men — and were booed off the pitch by their own supporters. Ornstein described the performance as something “that wouldn’t have been deemed acceptable by Carrick or the powers that be.”

The evening was further complicated by an extraordinary post-match interview from defender Lisandro Martinez, who publicly singled out technical director Jason Wilcox over the club’s summer transfer activity, adding an internal dimension to what is already a turbulent period.

Carrick was handed the permanent managerial role over the summer after an impressive interim spell that replaced Ruben Amorim. That caretaker stint had delivered a third-place league finish along with victories over Manchester City and Arsenal, generating considerable goodwill among the fanbase — goodwill that Ornstein suggests is still providing Carrick with a degree of breathing room.

“The support were really unhappy,” Ornstein noted. “I know a lot of United fans and I’ve detected it, too. There will also be questions about the people around the structure at United: recruitment, executives, owners. We’ve been in this position so many times before and the one who pays the price is the manager.”

United’s next test comes against an in-form Leeds United side, a fixture that now carries considerable weight given the results and performances that have preceded it.