Michael Carrick has refused to blame Manchester United's summer transfer business for the team's poor run of results, despite spending £150m in the window.
The United manager was responding to questions after nine senior players missed the midweek trip to Como, with several players deployed out of position in recent weeks. The club's injury list has exposed gaps in the squad, and fans have called on Carrick to be frank about the summer spend, which was less than several Premier League rivals.
Carrick's response on transfer backing
When asked if a lack of further signings had contributed to the poor results, Carrick said: "I think there's a lot of elements, different elements, some smaller than others of why we've ended up not winning as many games. So, I'm pretty clear about that."
Pressed on whether the board had conceded he should have received more support in the window, he replied: "It's not about receiving more support, it's about doing what's right on the football pitch to get results, and we haven't done enough of that lately."
His comments follow criticism from defender Lisandro Martinez, who said after the Champions League loss to Atletico Madrid that he "expected more" from the club in the transfer market.
Defence over pressing and running stats
Carrick also addressed criticism about the team's lack of intensity, with United bottom of key running statistics and players appearing lethargic in the heavy defeat to Como.
"I think you've got to be careful with just saying 'not running'," he said. "As I said we've won a lot of games over a period of time and this pressing thing, that suddenly everyone thinks about pressing."
He added: "Pressing is one small part of football. There's all sorts of different ways of what people are classed as a press. What actually is it? What you're doing it for? Is it to your strength? Is it covering up other spaces? It's just thrown about as a bit of a word at the minute of pressing. You don't necessarily need to press to win games of football."
"Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. It's just a thing that gets thrown about. So we've got to be a bit careful with that. As I say, it's not necessarily just running stats that define football games either."
Carrick concluded: "So we've just got to get back to doing a lot of the things that we were doing last season and for certain parts of this season and certain games we've been okay. We need to get back to being at our best."
