Former Premier League goalkeeper Brad Friedel has blamed Manchester United's board, rather than manager Michael Carrick, for the club's current plight, and said he is glad Carrick has kept his job.
United sit in the relegation zone after just one win from their opening 10 Premier League matches. Carrick's side drew 4-4 with Aston Villa on Sunday, with substitutes Joshua Zirkzee and Patrick Dorgu both scoring in stoppage time to salvage a point, but it was not enough to lift the club out of the bottom three.
Board review and fan protests
Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox are leading a review into the club's next step, having previously backed Carrick during crisis talks last month. The ownership of Avram Glazer and Sir Jim Ratcliffe has drawn protests from United fans.
Friedel, who played for Liverpool, Tottenham and Aston Villa, pointed to the experiences of United's previous managers since Sir Alex Ferguson to argue that changing the manager does not guarantee success.
Friedel's verdict on Carrick
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Star Sport, via Grosvenor Sport, Friedel said: "I think by him keeping his job, the top guys have seen that the fans are starting to realise that David Moyes wasn't wrong, and Louis van Gaal wasn't wrong, and Jose Mourinho wasn't wrong, and Ten Hag wasn't wrong, and Amorim wasn't wrong, and Solskjaer wasn't wrong."
He added: "They're starting to see that they truly think the problem is elsewhere. So perhaps someone on the board is thinking that too, by keeping him, because it's not normal in football at the big clubs for the manager to have kept his job after the string of results."
Friedel said he was "quite happy that they didn't just go and pull the trigger, because that's not always the fix. Sometimes it is, of course, but it's not always the fix."
Long-term need to win
Friedel acknowledged that Carrick must deliver results, saying: "To keep a job long term, you need to win games. That's what he needs to do. But I don't know what's wrong at the club, really."
He referenced Ralf Rangnick's past assessment of United, saying: "I think his comment was like the club doesn't need stitches, it needs open-heart surgery. All these some of the world's greatest football minds have been through there and they all say the same thing."
