Michael Carrick on the brink after Manchester United are humiliated by Bournemouth

After Bruno Fernandes was dropped for “pure football” reasons – according to Michael Carrick – could Manchester United actually win a game of football?

The answer, again, was a resounding, humiliating no, and if the manager’s job remains in real peril, you have to wonder, too, if this beleaguered team should steel themselves for a relegation dogfight. They lack imagination, cohesion, fight, confidence and anything resembling joy, and so, now they hover a point above the drop zone, survival cannot be taken for granted.

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Goals from Rayan, Marcus Tavernier and Evanilson downed United this afternoon yet what has killed Carrick and side in the past fortnight is the insubordination of Bruno Fernandes and Lisandro Martínez plus the deeper malaise of a club that is riven by factions.

The Sir Jim Ratcliffe-led football department may issue Carrick the bullet but the next man – Eddie Howe is favoured and is open to the job – will surely not break the boom-bust cycle that is each new manager’s fate. Before this latest debacle, you had to flick the calendar back 45 days to 10 September (eight games ago), for the last time United chalked up a “W” and gave their fans reason to cheer.

Once more Carrick’s men failed to do so. Equally as disappointing is how, in the days since Fernandes’s public takedown of Carrick, no apology has been forthcoming from the captain.

Where Martínez did say sorry for criticising Jason Wilcox (though, not to the director of football), the United captain’s silence speaks volumes. If Carrick made an error in not dropping Martínez for his outburst, discarding Fernandes was the correct call and so Harry Maguire’s redemption arc was complete, being handed the armband, after it was taken off him and given to the Portuguese in July 2023.

Now, Carrick surely fears being removed after a buoyant Bournemouth made it four successive wins versus an opponent offering scant resistance, as the boos ringing out at the end signified.

As is the case for this Carrick iteration, midfield control was an issue throughout. Youri Tielemans lost the ball, Bournemouth’s passing went tap-tap-tap, and United were turned.

Even when Leny Yoro fashioned a one-two with Tielemans and swept the ball left to Diogo Dalot, the move foundered, and moments later the young right-back was clearing from beneath his bar as a Rayan cross went close to teeing Evanilson up. All of this, yet again, pointed to a team that seem unable to execute whatever Carrick’s plan is.

Senne Lammens would hoof upfield aimlessly, Maguire would head possession back to a white shirt instead of chesting down, and as the half hour passed a wild Dalot shot was their sole one registered.