Manchester United manager Michael Carrick has brushed aside suggestions that his position at Old Trafford is under threat, insisting it would be premature to draw conclusions from a difficult run of results as his side prepare to travel to Fulham on Sunday.
The visit to Craven Cottage comes on the back of a torrid week for United. They were beaten at home by a Manchester City side that had been reduced to 10 men just 23 minutes into the match, before suffering an even more painful blow in the Carabao Cup, where Brighton became the first team in 50 years to overturn a two-goal deficit and win at Old Trafford. That collapse was met with boos from the home crowd, some of whom turned their frustration directly on the team.
Despite the mounting criticism, Carrick maintained that speculation about his long-term future had no place in his thinking at this stage of the season. "In terms of future and ownership and how long I've got in the job, that's totally not in my thinking. It's ridiculous to think that way in the position I'm in, that's just not on the radar," he said.
The 45-year-old, who has overseen only two wins in six matches this campaign — against newly promoted Ipswich, who required a comeback, and Champions League minnows Sabah FK of Azerbaijan — acknowledged the poor run but rejected any sense of crisis. "It's two or three games. It's two or three games too many because I really hate losing, but that doesn't mean the world caves in. In some minds it does, it can't for us," he said, adding later that the situation was "not a catastrophe or a disaster" and "not the end of the world."
Carrick's comments come amid reports that there is no appetite among senior figures at United to remove him from his role, with club insiders instead more concerned about what they view as underperformance from a squad that won 12 of its last 17 matches under his charge in the second half of last season.
The United boss also addressed the swirl of external criticism surrounding the club, which has touched on transfer recruitment — particularly the lack of reinforcement at left-back — United's financial constraints, his own relative inexperience as a head coach, and that of his coaching staff, aside from assistant Steve Holland. Carrick suggested that problems at a club of United's stature tend to be magnified beyond their true scale.
"There's great feelings, and there's obviously disappointments, and sometimes the smaller disappointments lead to being a little bit bigger," he said. "It's just part of coping and being at this great football club. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, genuinely. It's the best place for me to be, in part because of the times when it's maybe not going to plan. Sometimes they are best times to work your way through, to find out a few things and come out an awful lot stronger."
Rather than pointing fingers, Carrick called for collective responsibility across the club as it looks to turn its form around. "It's not a blame game," he said. "We all search for things to look at and point at, or whatever reason it may be and find a blame. Blame me. No problem. I will take the responsibility. But it's not about blaming people. It's about us, it's about us finding solutions and being better. That's as a whole football club."
On the injury front, Carrick offered a note of encouragement, revealing that defender Luke Shaw and summer signing Carlos Baleba "have a chance" of being available for selection against Fulham.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport Football.