Carrick sack coming as Man Utd players down tools after Brighton comeback | OneFootball

After Michael Carrick’s tactical limitations were brutally exposed by Enzo Maresca and his Manchester City team in the derby on Sunday we asked if anyone really still had confidence that the incumbent manager is the man to make Manchester United great again. Brighton’s win at Old Trafford provided a comprehensive answer to that question.

When Shea Lacey scored a goal on his full debut and then Mason Mount gave the Red Devils a 2-0 lead inside ten minutes, thoughts turned to whether Carrick might be able to give some of the other kids a go from the bench and if JJ Gabriel might be regretting his decision to snub a place in the squad for this game in favour of an exit from the club.

As Carrick called on the cavalry – bestride lame horses – in the form of Bryan Mbeumo, Kobbie Mainoo, Bruno Fernandes and Matheus Cunha midway through the second half, those of us to have watched the capitulation and stunning failure to respond had entirely accepted that Gabriel is absolutely right to seek an exit from this continually smouldering bin-fire of a football club, currently led by a man with his member in his hand on the touchline in a bid to extinguish the flames.

United were awful from the tenth minute; completely dominated by a properly coached football team.

Charalampos Kostoulas, Pascal Groß and Maxim De Cuyper got the goals for the Brighton, who were worthy of at least double that. Their press was impeccable and United had no answer to it. 35-year-old Groß was strolling across the Old Trafford pitch as if he owned the place.

It’s hard to know what’s more worrying for United and Carrick – the Brighton comeback or the pathetic response to it.

The defending was abysmal, and Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven can have no complaints when they’re back out of the team for the next game. Both of them love the modern-day defender bits – nice passes, neat body swerves – but aren’t willing or able to do the proper defending. Yoro cost £52m. Incredible.

There was no great sign of passion from the players, Lacey aside. Benjamin Sesko was an embarrassment, particularly in one phase of play when he may have assumed he was offside, wasn’t, and walked with the football towards goal when any sort of urgency could have led to a chance or a goal.

But Brighton are a very good football team perfectly capable of getting back into a game as they did against what was a second-string Manchester United side.

What can’t be excused is how a Manchester United team at Old Trafford tried to get back into the game, if indeed they were trying. It genuinely wasn’t clear.

Even in the very worst periods in the club’s recent cursed history, United have still responded to the roars of the home crowd. It’s very hard not to. Evidently not impossible.

While chasing a goal they could barely string two passes together, partly because of Brighton’s superb work off the ball, but chiefly because they had absolutely no idea how to get up the pitch and create chances when they needed to. Some looked shellshocked like their manager on the touchline, others indifferent to what was happening; as though they knew they had no hope, and maybe have no hope.

We were waiting for Bruno Fernandes to do something when he came on, but he and the other first-teamers if anything made them worse. Any structure United did have before the substitutions was gone and Brighton had several chances to embarrass them further.

Because let’s not play this down. We know it’s early in the season. But that was indeed an embarrassment. It’s the first time United have lost having been 2-0 up at Old Trafford in 50 years.

And there’s a reason the cameras were panning to director of football Jason Wilcox in the crowd when Brighton’s third went in and as the boos rang out at the final whistle. The Sky Sports producers know like you and we do – Carrick isn’t long for Manchester United.