Michael Carrick has been warned that Manchester United's defence is too brittle, but the issue is not too difficult to fix, according to former assistant Rene Meulensteen. Carrick has taken over as head coach until the end of the season, inheriting a side that has won just once in seven games and been eliminated from the FA Cup.
Meulensteen, who worked under Sir Alex Ferguson, believes the problems are easily addressable but stressed the urgency of shoring up the backline. United have kept only one clean sheet in their last 15 matches, with even lowly Burnley scoring twice against them last week. Bournemouth previously netted four times at Old Trafford in an eight-goal thriller.
Speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, Meulensteen said: "What I saw in both of the games, there’s gaps all over the place and opposition will exploit that. He has to come in, especially in the games against City and Arsenal coming up, and make sure that’s sorted." He added that he trusts Carrick's football intelligence but noted issues with goalkeeping, midfield, and the need to find the best defensive connections.
United's defensive woes have been compounded by injuries, with Matthijs de Ligt sidelined, while Lisandro Martinez has returned, bringing aggression to the backline. The 3-4-3 formation under Ruben Amorim never clicked, leaving United outnumbered in midfield. Under caretaker Darren Fletcher, the team conceded four times in two games.
Carrick has acknowledged his remit is simply to win games, by whatever means necessary. "We want to win games. It goes without saying, we want to win games," he said. "There's different ways of doing it, of course, different scenarios, different situations in games that you might have to play a certain way."
