Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has come out in support of head coach Michael Carrick, but reiterated that the players didn't need to save his job in their 3-2 comeback win against Roma. United and Carrick looked dead and buried within the first 18 minutes as the Italian side took a two-goal lead in the early exchanges. It prompted boos and protests from supporters, who threw tennis balls onto the pitch, but the Red Devils turned things around as a Fernandes penalty and a late Matheus Cunha double gave them their first win in 54 days.
The spirit shown in the performance suggested at least some on-pitch support for Carrick, whose tenure appeared to have been hanging on by a thread ever since the 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth. Fernandes was named on the bench for that game after publicly questioning the tactics in a sobering 4-1 defeat to Como four days prior. His words after Roma, though, were a lot more defiant than accusatory.
"We don't need to save anyone's job," Fernandes told Amazon Prime post-match. "We've been working so hard to get out of this situation altogether. There's been a lot of speculation in the media, a lot of lies around many things that have happened in this club.
Between me and the manager, that we had to clear the air. Nothing like that happened. "The manager took a decision of putting myself on the bench because I wasn't performing at that level.
Everyone felt that it was a punishment for the words that I had. "The manager is the one who makes the decisions. I have to accept them, I have to go forward with that.
It doesn't change the belief I have in the manager, in the staff and every player that is in this club. It doesn't change my aim to win every game that I have ahead of me. It should be [a turning point]." Carrick himself similarly played down suggestions that the turnaround could've helped his cause, saying "it's a win for us as a football club," when asked how the result could change the narrative.
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