Man Utd spent £150m in the summer transfer window, significantly less than their rivals in the Premier League.

Michael Carrick refused to pinpoint Manchester United's failure to adequately strengthen his squad over the summer as a factor in the team's poor results.

Lisandro Martinez ripped into the club's board after United's loss to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League earlier this month, saying he "expected more" from United in the summer transfer market.

United currently have a lengthy injury list - nine senior players missed the midweek trip to Como - but the holes in the squad have been exposed over the last few weeks, with Carrick playing players out of position.

United fans have called on Carrick to be frank about the club's £150million spend in the summer transfer window, which was trumped by the Reds' rivals. However, the 44-year-old has refused to upset the apple cart by saying he should have been backed more.

When asked if he would agree that a lack of further signings over the summer have been a factor in the poor results, Carrick responded: "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. So, I'm pretty clear about that."

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Carrick was asked if the board had conceded that he should have received more support in the window.

"It's not about receiving more support, it's about doing what's right on the football pitch to get results, and we haven't done enough of that lately," he said.

One of the criticisms Carrick's team has faced is about the lack of intensity. United are bottom of the key running statistics, and the players looked lethargic again during the hammering by Como.

"I think you've got to be careful with just saying ‘not running’," said Carrick. "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 are classed as a press. What actually is it? What you're 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 of pressing. 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."