Man United: Carrick defends Reds players

Louis van Gaal tells reporters that he will have to “wait and see” if he keeps his job as manager of Manchester United. It is believed the pair held talks over the weekend regarding the Dutchman’s future.

Carrick admitted the players’ pride had been dented by United’s longest run without a win since the 1989-90 season, and called on his team-mates to respond by beating Chelsea at Old Trafford today.

United are expected to recall Wayne Rooney to the starting eleven after the skipper was left on the bench for Saturday loss at Stoke.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Van Gaal as Bastian Schweinsteiger is available for selection after serving a three-match ban.

Stoke City beat United 2-0 on Saturday to push down Lous van Gaal’s men to the sixth spot in the EPL table. There are no ways, artificial ways, to solve that. “We need to do better, it’s as simple as that”, midfielder Michael Carrick said after the Stoke game. We only can recover, we cannot train.

“It’s Manchester United we are playing for, it’s a special club and it’s a privilege to play. It is very hard to do that in just two days but we shall try”, van Gaal, who coached the Netherlands to bronze medal at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, said.

The poor run of form has led to claims of dressing room unrest, but Carrick insists the whole squad have been doing their best for Van Gaal. “The scrutiny is all right for me, I am used to that”, the United manager said.

Chelsea are not without their own problems.

Here against Watford, life without Mourinho began, without the result or performance that Chelsea’s supporters would have wanted. “It’s very tough to do that, I’m aware of that”.

“That is what is happening now and you have to cope with it”. The teams who are, even in December, competing for being in the first four, like Leicester, Crystal Palace, and Watford, it’s not just by surprise, because they’re well-organised, they have skilful players – and then you can be beaten also by them. That is also in other teams.

“It’s different for every individual player, for every human being, how they want to cope with it – and it is not so easy”.

Asked by Sky Sports News if he was still confident that he had the backing of the United board, Van Gaal replied: “It is another situation as we’ve lost a fourth game, so we’ll have to wait and see”. We were there and we have fallen back.

“Now there is a fallback and that is different, and everybody is judging also different”.