Manchester United's Season of Struggles and Leadership Changes
By the time Manchester United trudged off in Como, the result almost felt secondary. Another flat performance, another early goal conceded, another step deeper into a season that already feels heavy. But what followed the final whistle told the real story of where this club stands.
For the second week running, a senior player walked through the mixed zone and lit a match. Lisandro Martinez had gone first, questioning the club’s direction and ambition. This time it was the captain, Bruno Fernandes, turning the spotlight squarely on Michael Carrick and his staff, picking at tactics and approach in a way that left little room for misinterpretation.
The defeats hurt. The interviews cut deeper.
By Friday, Carrick had clearly had enough. His pre‑Bournemouth press conference turned into a five‑minute, unprompted address. Emotional. Pointed. Less about systems and more about standards. He spoke of humility, of humbleness – words that felt carefully chosen, aimed not at the cameras but at the dressing room walls of Carrington.
If the manager was asking whether his players were truly together, there was only one place to start when Senne Lammens sat down to talk.
Is this changing room united?
“For me personally, I think it is,” United’s No 1 said. No hesitation, but no sugar-coating either.
He knows what it looks like from the outside. The body language on the pitch. The visible frustration at full-time. The pointed comments in post-match interviews. The sense of fracture.
“I think it's easy to see maybe after a game when players are very frustrated, and I get it, I'm very frustrated as well because we all really want to do better and we all want to win,” Lammens explained. “Then we might say sometimes things we don't really mean or fully explain what we mean.
“Of course, the people at home can't see that, so we need to also try to look like that when we are on the pitch in the weekend, but I can assure you that we're doing everything we can and we're all together behind the coach, as a staff, players, front office.
“Everyone knows, of course, they have to do better, but I think we are united and we are trying to get better as a team and together.”
United’s season keeps starting before they do
Words are one thing. The pattern on the pitch is another.
In Como, United were behind almost before they had touched the ball. Again. It has become a grim routine. They conceded even earlier against Atletico Madrid the week before. Fulham and Spurs pinned them back either side of the international break. The clock barely ticks past two minutes and United are already chasing.
One clean sheet all season tells its own story – and that came against Sabah on September 10 in the Champions League. For a club built on control and authority, this is a team living in permanent jeopardy.
“It's difficult,” Lammens admitted. “We have to learn from that as well fast, because you can try to come up with plans and tactics, but if you get a goal against in the first or second minute, it kind of screws up a little bit your game plan and you're kind of chasing the game from then on.
“That's probably one of the biggest things we need to work on right now – to keep ourselves in the game and to try and get that first goal ourselves, instead of being 1-0 down straight away.”
He can hear the outside noise. The pundits. The fans. The suggestion that this is simply a matter of effort.
“I get people thinking it's an easy fix, or like, why don't you just try harder or something like that? Trust me, we are trying harder every day and trying to come up with a solution, but sometimes when it's not going your way, everything falls into place for the other team.
“You only need one performance to turn it around, and I think that's what we're trying to aim for and what we're working really hard on right now.
“As you mentioned, it's very easy to have narratives or stories and headlines and something that's been targeted at the team as well.”
Narratives, tactics – and a team that has lost its edge
The narratives are not coming from nowhere. Seven games without a win in all competitions. Their worst run since 2014-15. A side that last season hunted down Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City with intensity and aggression now looks second best in too many duels, too many moments, too many games.
Carrick has usually stood in front of his players when the criticism comes. Protected them. Defended them. But in Como, he could not hide from what everyone had seen. He accepted they were short in aggression, in intensity, in running – the very pillars that had underpinned his impressive first five months in charge.
So what has actually changed?
On the surface, not the personnel. Not the ambition. But tactically, there has been a clear attempt to evolve. To move from being a ruthless counter-punching side into a team more comfortable dictating with the ball.
Lammens sees that shift from inside the dressing room.
“Last season I felt like, playing-wise, maybe we played sometimes better this season, but last season everything just clicked and went the right way for us,” he said.
“We struggled as a team together when they pressed us, but we didn't concede that many goals, and then I think as a counter team a bit more last season we did really well, but you also know, I think everybody knew that we had to improve as well from that, that teams were going to change the way they played against us.
“So that's why we had to evolve this season and in preseason, we tried to do some different things to get us in the best position to win games.
“I think we need a little bit more like last season, the way we fought together, even when it wasn't going the best and just trying to fight as a team and defend as a team, I think that's probably something we need to try to get back to.”
That word again: fight
For all the talk of structures and systems, the conversation with Lammens kept circling back to something more basic. Fight. The thing Old Trafford supporters saw in abundance last season and have been straining to find since August.
Where has it gone?
“I get it, I see people talking about numbers and maybe stats and data, I'm not sure about that, because every game is a little bit different,” he said.
“I think, like I said, with the ball we try to do a bit of different things, try to improve, because last season we weren't always the best with the ball. I think we have improved in those sort of things, but maybe the mindset of having the ball and trying to play around has that mindset of when you don't have the ball and try to fight for it the way we did last season.
“We need to get a bit of both. It is a fine line, to be honest, that aggressiveness. When you don't have the ball and when you have the ball, you want that calmness, that being able to play from the back and being able to play through the press. I think it's just finding that fine line in ourselves.”
That “fine line” is where United have been losing matches. Caught between wanting to control and needing to compete, they have ended up doing neither well enough, often enough.
Inside a strained week, a different kind of voice
It has been a bruising stretch for everyone connected with the club. Results sliding. Senior players speaking out. A manager feeling compelled to publicly remind his squad about humility.
In that context, Lammens’ willingness to talk openly – to acknowledge the problems without throwing anyone under the bus – felt significant. No grand slogans. No empty promises. Just a goalkeeper trying to articulate what it feels like to be inside a team that knows it is underperforming and is desperate to drag itself out.
United will call Bournemouth “pivotal”. Carrick stays in charge for that one, with pressure from above, below and all sides. The questions about unity, about tactics, about identity, will not vanish with a single win.
But in a week when so many voices have added to the noise, Lammens at least sounded like something United badly need right now.
An emerging leader who understands the storm he’s standing in – and is no longer afraid to speak through it.
