Manchester United bosses are locked in crisis talks at Carrington over Michael Carrick’s future as he fights to keep his job as head coach.
Chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox arrived at the training ground on Monday morning with Carrick and the players on a planned day off after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth at Old Trafford.
The two men are expected to hold conference calls with co-chairmen Joel and Avram Glazer, and minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe to decide Carrick’s fate and identify a successor if the 45-year-old is axed.
Eddie Howe and Julian Nagelsmann, both currently out of work and available to take over immediately, are the leading candidates after bookmakers stopped taking bets on Carrick being sacked.
The former United midfielder has 18 months left on the two-year contract he signed in May after guiding the club back into the Champions League.
After playing away in Spain and Italy over the last fortnight, United have a free week after going out of the Carabao Cup to Brighton and aren’t in action again until they meet Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday lunchtime.
Omar Berrada (left) and Jason Wilcox (right) are seen arriving at Carrington ahead of crisis talks with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers
Bruno Fernandes came into Carrington desite the players being on a day off
Manchester United’s head honchos are locked in talks about Michael Carrick’s future
Carrick’s job is hanging by a thread after United suffered a sixth defeat in 12 games this season against Bournemouth. Afterwards the visibly emotional head coach appeared to say farewell to the fans, although he later insisted that was not the case.
He also revealed that he had not spoken to Berrada or Wilcox over his future, although it’s understood that discussions have been taking place over the growing crisis among the United hierarchy before Sunday’s defeat.
‘Just briefly they came down like they always do after a game, but nothing out of the ordinary,’ said Carrick.
‘I totally understand the situation. I’m not expecting anything either way. I’m carrying on as normal. I love this place. I’ll always do what I feel is going to be the best for the football club and I won’t change that now, whatever decision is made.
‘It’s a tough situation, there’s no hiding from it. What it looks like and what’s next I really don’t know. I love what I do and I feel the responsibility. We’ll have to wait and see.
‘Of course, I take responsibility. I respect the position that I’m in, and the responsibility is mine. What else can I say really right now?
‘I’ve tried to do everything I can to not be in this position, of course I have. For a number of reasons, we’ve not been able to stop that happening to the position we’re in right now.
‘I’ve been at the club a long time. It hurts an awful lot to see us going through this at this moment in time. The situation is where we are and we haven’t had results or performances that have been good enough.
‘I’m feeling it for my players, they’re going through a tough spell. There’s a lot of emotion in the changing room right now, there’s a lot of the boys quite hurt, to be fair.
‘It’s not like they don’t care or they want to be in this position. The ones I’ve spoken to, it’s affecting them a lot.’
