Michael Carrick insists Manchester United are not “unmanageable” as he prepares for potentially his final match as manager on Sunday.

Carrick’s immediate future could hinge on the outcome of Bournemouth’s visit to Old Trafford after a shocking start to the season that has left the United hierarchy exploring all options.

Carrick is United’s seventh permanent manager since Sir Alex Ferguson retired 13 years ago, during which time the club have lurched from one crisis to the next.

But asked if United had become unmanageable, Carrick replied firmly: “No.”

Nonetheless, the former Old Trafford midfielder needs an immediate response from his players to Wednesday’s shambolic 4-1 Champions League defeat in Como that led to more infighting.

Bruno Fernandes faces the threat of being dropped or having the captaincy taken off him after appearing to publicly question the manager’s tactics, just a week after Lisandro Martínez attacked United’s director of football, Jason Wilcox, and the Old Trafford board.

“We’ll be a different team on Sunday – we have to be a different team on Sunday,” Carrick said.

‘I definitely trust the players’

Despite winning only two of 11 games this season, Carrick insists he still trusts his players, most of whom helped the club finish third in the Premier League last season and return to Champions League football after Carrick replaced Ruben Amorim in January.

“I definitely trust them, yeah, 100 per cent I trust them,” he said. “It wasn’t a very good night at all [in Como] for so many reasons. We all know that. I think that’s pretty obvious. I definitely trust them.”

Carrick responded to criticisms about set-up and approach from Fernandes on Wednesday by suggesting tactics count for little if players are unprepared to run.

“Whatever system you play, whatever tactics you play, if you don’t run, and you don’t run forward, and you don’t run back, you ain’t going to win,” the manager said at the time.

Asked why United’s players were not running hard enough, a complaint also made by many of his predecessors, Carrick said United’s struggles this season were down to an array of factors.

“I think you’ve got to be careful with just saying ‘not running’,” he said. “As I said, we’ve won a lot of games over a period of time and this pressing thing – that suddenly everyone thinks about pressing: pressing is one small part of football.

“There’s all sorts of different ways of what people class as a press. What actually is it? What are you doing it for? Is it to your strength? Is it covering up other spaces? It’s just thrown about as a bit of a word at the minute. You don’t necessarily need to press to win games of football. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.

“It’s just a thing that gets thrown about. So we’ve got to be a bit careful with that. As I say, it’s not necessarily just running stats that define football games either. So we’ve just got to get back to doing a lot of the things that we were doing last season and for certain parts of this season and certain games we’ve been okay. We need to get back to being at our best.”

Manager refuses to blame lack of signings

United’s board are desperate for things to work with Carrick and there has been little appetite for yet another managerial change at the club.

But performances and results are causing alarm and have led the hierarchy to explore their options in the event they feel a change becomes unavoidable. Some players are also starting to lose faith.

Julian Nagelsmann, Eddie Howe, Unai Emery, Antonio Conte and Fabian Hürzeler are among the managers who could be in the frame to replace Carrick.

United failed to strengthen in defence or bring in a striker as cover for the injured Benjamin Sesko in the summer, but Carrick refused to blame a lack of signings for their problems and said he did not require more support from the top of the club.

“I think there’s a lot of elements, different elements, some smaller than others of why we’ve ended up not winning as many games,” he said. “So, I’m pretty clear about that.