LONDON: Michael Carrick expects to remain in charge of Manchester United for Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Roma despite his side’s 2-0 defeat to Chelsea, extending the club’s winless run to nine matches.
Carrick was previously given the opportunity to continue managing the team by United’s top management after the 0-3 home defeat to Bournemouth last week, when many expected the former England midfielder to be sacked.
United showed a marked improvement in the first half at Stamford Bridge but a failure to convert chances saw them squander several chances to take the lead.
Morgan Rogers then easily got past the United defence before opening the scoring early in the second half.
Lisandro Martinez was then shown two yellow cards in a short period of time and awarded Chelsea a penalty which was converted by Cole Palmer, thus destroying United’s hopes of a comeback.
“Yes,” Carrick told TNT Sports when asked if he expected to continue in charge for the match against Roma.
“We need to keep moving forward. We need to take what we felt was successful in today’s match, build confidence and maintain a lot of positive aspects, especially in the first half.”
United’s longest winless run in 38 years sees them now just one point above the Premier League relegation zone and at risk of falling into the bottom three by the end of this week.
“After being in such a good position in the first half, these two halves of the game were very different,” said Carrick.
“I think the way the players played, the quality of the game and our performance in the first half really gave us a boost. We have to take those positives.”
Two defeats in the first three matches of the Champions League see United now in 20th place out of 36 teams and facing the risk of failing to advance to the knockout stages.