United's Struggles Continue Despite Fulham Draw
United’s laboured point at Craven Cottage might have stopped the bleeding on paper. It did nothing to calm the storm around Michael Carrick’s team.
A late, deflected strike from Matheus Cunha salvaged a 1-1 draw against Fulham, sparing United from a third straight league defeat. It merely papered over an afternoon that left Gary Neville incandescent on Sky Sports co-commentary.
Lisandro Martinez’s early own goal had set the tone, a chaotic miscue that summed up United’s muddled start. They chased the game from there, never truly convincing, never truly convincing anyone they understood the scale of the crisis they are drifting into.
Cunha’s equaliser arrived late, ugly and vital. A shot that changed direction, wrong-footed the goalkeeper and dragged United off the canvas. The away end roared. Neville did not.
Neville tears into United’s work rate
Neville’s anger wasn’t about tactics or shape. It was about something more basic: running.
“I've never seen a Man Utd team walk out of possession as much as that,” he said, stunned by what he was watching in west London. For long stretches, Fulham dominated the ball with alarming ease, while United players appeared to drift, not press.
He had already branded them “mannequins” on air. The word stuck because it fit. “No alertness, no aliveness. No 'on your toes'. You should always be on your toes,” he insisted, dissecting a side that looked flat from the first whistle and somehow grew more passive after the break.
Neville highlighted the opening stages of the second half as the nadir. “In those first 15 minutes of that second half, Man Utd and generally for the first 60 minutes, were a genuine disgrace. Nowhere near good enough without the ball.”
This was not a one-off rant. It felt like a line in the sand.
Carrick’s loyalty under the spotlight
What seemed to infuriate Neville just as much as the performance was Carrick’s refusal to publicly call it out.
“Michael has got to stop defending them,” Neville said. He understood the instinct, he added – the loyalty to his players, the desire to shield the dressing room, the need to keep the season alive. But there was a limit.
Carrick had dismissed the idea that his side were passive, pushing back on criticism of their energy levels. Neville could not believe it. For him, the evidence was there in every jog, every half-press, every Fulham player allowed to turn and pick a pass.
“Michael is of course saying something different to us than he is saying privately. That would've really worried me,” Neville warned. Protecting the squad publicly is one thing. Denying the scale of the problem in front of millions is another.
He accepted that scrutiny comes with the job. “People will ask questions about him, but he knew that when he took the job.” Neville stressed there was “no panic” yet and “no one is putting pressure on Carrick” from above, but the caveat hung heavy: keep playing like this, and that will change quickly.
“If those types of performances continue, he will find himself in a lot of trouble. They've got to work harder than that for him.”
A pattern that’s becoming hard to ignore
This was not an isolated blip. The flat display at Craven Cottage followed back-to-back defeats: a humbling loss to Manchester City and a Carabao Cup collapse against Brighton. Each game has added another layer of doubt about this team’s intensity when they do not have the ball.
United used to be defined by their ferocity out of possession. Here, Fulham were allowed to pass and probe, largely unbothered, while United strolled and pointed.
Neville’s verdict cut through the noise because it went to the heart of what supporters expect as a minimum. Not brilliance. Not domination. Just work.
Cunha’s late goal earned a point. The performance earned a warning. How long can Carrick keep defending this level of effort before the questions turn from the players to him?
