Michael Carrick is expected to stay in charge of Manchester United for Sunday’s crucial Premier League match at home to Bournemouth.

However the stakes are sky-high for the under-pressure head coach with United actively considering their options if he cannot turn results around quickly.

As Telegraph Sport revealed, Julian Nagelsmann features prominently in United’s thinking and is understood to want the job – as does Antonio Conte. United are also tracking Fabian Hurzeler while there is interest in Eddie Howe.

Performances sounding alarm bells

There is sympathy for Carrick from within the hierarchy, with some arguing that he is being let down by under-performing players.

There is also a debate as to whether making another managerial change will see United fall into a familiar pattern and they should, instead, hold their nerve and give Carrick time.

However there is also a feeling that United possess a far stronger squad than results have achieved and it is Carrick and his coaching staff who are at fault.

With no wins in seven matches in all competitions, it is not just results, but performances which are causing alarm.

After Wednesday’s 4-1 trouncing away to Como in the Champions League, Bruno Fernandes said United were living in the past and has demanded the club’s executives and his team-mates wake up to that reality.

The United captain has placed himself on a collision course with Carrick after appearing to call out the manager’s tactics.

United’s players and staff had a day off on Thursday after returning from Italy in the early hours amid intense scrutiny around Carrick’s future.

Carrick had fired back at Fernandes’s criticism by suggesting tactics go out of the window when players are unprepared to run.

But United’s set-up under Carrick was not Fernandes’s only complaint as he claimed the 20-time English champions are burdened by their storied past.

Speaking to Sky Italia, the Portugal midfielder said: “At this club, there’s too much focus on what’s been done in the past, but we’re not those people anymore. The club and the players need to understand that.

“Unfortunately for us – especially when it comes to the players – those who join expect to win trophies, win games, and reach the highest level, but unfortunately, that’s been very difficult at this club in recent years. That’s the situation.”

Fernandes’s outburst at Carrick has resurrected a debate around the midfielder’s suitability as United captain.

Fernandes was dragged off in the 67th minute by Carrick after a dismal showing in what has been a poor campaign so far from last season’s PFA Player of the Year.

‘He’s killing the rest of the team’

It was the second successive Champions League match in which Fernandes had been taken off.

Former Liverpool and England defender and Telegraph Sport columnist Jamie Carragher was scathing about Fernandes’s attitude and suggested he should look closer to home after likening his tactical discipline to that of a “school kid”. “He’s reacted like that because he’s been embarrassed by the manager [who] brought him off,” Carragher said on CBS Sports.

“And when he talks about pressing, whether it’s man-to-man or zonal, for years Bruno Fernandes has meant Manchester United can’t press because he does things for the crowd. “He runs all over the place like a kid in the school-yard for the supporters. They all think he’s working hard. He’s not. He’s killing the rest of the team doing it. “Watching him throw his arms up every week in a game is an absolute disgrace [and] calling the manager out considering how he’s performed this season on the pitch. [It’s an] awful attitude and not what a Manchester United captain should be.”

Fernandes and Carrick were both pictured driving away from Manchester Airport around 12.30am on Thursday after flying back after the game.

United are scheduled to report back to Carrington on Friday although it remains to be seen what happens with Carrick.

Bournemouth will visit Old Trafford on Sunday with United having now won just two of their 11 games this season.

It would have been galling for United fans to hear Cesc Fàbregas, the Como coach, reveal he had actually told his players to ease off later in the game.

The Italian side were already 4-0 when he instructed them to slow down, a move he said he regretted after Joshua Zirkzee scored late on for United. “I regret maybe the last 10 minutes when I was the one telling the team to slow down the pace because there was another game and maybe with a 4-0 lead they could have managed something,” the former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder said. “I told Tasos Douvikas not to run anymore, to stay in the middle and maybe that is what I regret, because I’m the first one who always pushes the fight until the end. That [Zirkzee] goal hurt me.”