LEEDS, England — Michael Carrick said Manchester United‘s situation “doesn’t look great” after a 1-1 draw at Leeds left the club in the bottom half of the Premier League and still searching for a first win since August.
United have collected just seven points from their seven league games this season and are now on a run of one win from seven games in all competitions.
The sequence of results means United, who travel to Serie A side Como in the Champions League on Wednesday, are in the middle of their worst start to a season since 1986.
And while he attempted to find positives from the performance at Elland Road, Carrick admitted that United need to emerge from their slump.
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“We are not accepting that everything’s great, but sometimes you do struggle and you have to find a way through it,” Carrick said. “I understand the situation doesn’t look great but I have no doubts we can go on a good run.
“We have to find a way through it. There has been a cycle where it can go in different directions, but we are more than capable of winning matches.
“I am not sat here comparing it to any point [in the past], but we know we can do it, we have done it for some time and we feel we are a better group now.
“I am encouraged by a lot of things and I think we can still have a really good season.”
United took the lead in the first half through Bryan Mbeumo, but the home side equalized on 51 minutes when Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored from close range after the visitors failed to clear a corner.
But after a difficult week marred by defender Lisandro Martínez criticizing the club hierarchy’s lack of summer spending following a Champions League defeat at Atlético Madrid, Carrick said he believed the performance against Leeds heralded a “fresh start.”
“It felt like a fresh start today, accepting it and doing something about it,” Carrick said. “There was definitely that commitment, it had to be there today.
“I didn’t doubt that, I could feel it, the last couple of days has been as good around the group as we have had for quite some time.
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“There was definitely an edge to the game, an intensity. I spoke to the boys about the history of what the game is, the territory, what it takes to win here.
“It definitely tests you and it wasn’t a perfect performance, but there was a lot in there to show. That didn’t surprise me.
“But we are not getting too carried away because we didn’t win, but if you keep doing the right things for the right reasons, you get what you deserve in the end.”
