‘Passive?!’ – Carrick responds to ‘pathetic’ Neville criticism after Man Utd draw | OneFootball

Michael Carrick was surprised by Gary Neville claiming Manchester United produced “the worst 15 minutes I’ve ever seen” in their 1-1 draw with Fulham.

Fulham took the lead with the first meaningful attack of the second half as Calvin Bassey outmuscled Matheus Cunha before firing a shot at goal, which was parried by Lammens towards Lisandro Martinez, who inexplicably put the ball into his own net.

Matheus Cunha’s deflected shot saved Carrick and United from a third consecutive defeat, but Neville didn’t hold back in his criticism of his former side, hitting out at them for “walking” through much of proceedings.

“I’ve watched Man Utd since the age of five and that’s the worst I’ve seen them play,” a furious Neville said. “Absolutely pathetic. They’ve walked for 15 minutes.”

But Carrick was confused when it was put to him that his side were too “passive” after the game.

“I didn’t think we did [look passive]. Did you think we were passive?! Football is a difficult game,” he said.

“We controlled a lot of the first half and we played a lot of good football today. There is going to be spells when you don’t have it go your own way.

“The goal they scored, and arguably there is a foul at one point on Matheus [Cunha, and it is two deflections. It goes their way.

“To expect total dominance for the whole game, I don’t think anyone gets that in this league.”

Good effort, lads

Asked if he was happy with the effort his team put in, Carrick replied: “Yeah. We don’t need to get carried away. It is not a big judgement call all of a sudden.

“We know we can be better and we need to be better at certain things. We will be. There were good signs and it will take us through the season.

“I thought we should’ve won the game, we created enough to win the game.

“We had a lot of good play and the goal we did concede, it is one of those goals.

“I really liked the reaction and how we finished the game. It would be easy for it to go in another direction.

“We nearly won it at the end. We came to get the win; of course we did, but the way we finished the game is the positive we take from it.

“Their goalkeeper, the saves he has made, he was Player of the Match and we hit the post twice. A lot of it [our play] was good.

“There are things to take from it, for sure.”

On plans for the international break, he added: “There is only so much you can do. The players we have, we will train and work with them.

“There will be a little bit of time off and then we get ready for the restart when we get back.”