Carrick keeps Manchester United job for Chelsea trip after crisis talks

Michael Carrick will still be Manchester United manager when the team travel to Chelsea on Saturday, after senior officials at the club spent Monday discussing his position.

Carrick led training at Carrington on Tuesday, according to Reuters, two days after a 3-0 home defeat by Bournemouth that left United winless in eight games and put his position under what Sky Sports described as major pressure.

BBC Sport reported that he will remain in charge for the trip to Stamford Bridge. It is a reprieve, but hardly a vote of confidence.

Talks at Carrington

The scale of the doubt is clear from who was in the building. Sky Sports reported that director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada were at Carrington on Monday discussing Carrick's future.

While they talked, names were already being attached to the job. Reuters reported that potential replacements had been linked during the discussions, and BBC Sport named Eddie Howe and Julian Nagelsmann as the candidates under consideration.

That is a long way from where Carrick stood at the end of last season. He was given the job permanently, on a two-year contract, after guiding United to a third-place Premier League finish during an interim spell, according to BBC Sport.

Eight games without a win later, his future was being discussed by the club's most senior officials.

Carrick himself has not tried to dress it up. "The responsibility is mine," he told BBC Sport.

"I totally understand the situation. I'm not expecting anything either way," he said. "What it looks like and what's next I really don't know."

He added: "I will always do my best for the football club and I won't change that now. I love what I do and I feel the responsibility - we'll have to wait and see."

Fans back the manager, not the players

Part of the reason the decision was not straightforward lies in the reaction inside Old Trafford on Sunday. Sky Sports reported that United supporters applauded Carrick off the pitch after the Bournemouth defeat. The players did not receive the same reaction.

That tells its own story. A crowd that has just watched a 3-0 home loss does not usually clap the manager unless it believes the problem lies elsewhere.

Even so, the decision to keep him has divided opinion. Sky Sports reported that it split supporters and its own pundits, with its analysts disagreeing over whether this amounts to a final chance or a stay of execution.