Just 10 months on from Ruben Amorim’s final game in charge of Manchester United, the club return to Elland Road on Sunday afternoon with another manager under pressure and the director of football again in the spotlight.

The difference is Michael Carrick still has a chance to determine the course of his United future whereas Amorim had already sealed his fate after a furious bust-up with Jason Wilcox 48 hours before his last game ended in a 1-1 draw with Leeds and post-match fireworks.

But even for a club never far from a crisis, it seems remarkable to think they are back in a tailspin so soon after Amorim’s sacking in early January.

Wilcox was among the targets as Amorim took aim at the Old Trafford hierarchy post-Leeds, and the United director of football and his fellow executives were back in the line of fire this week following an extraordinary attack from inside the dressing room.

Lisandro Martínez will be in contention to face Leeds after publicly apologising for calling out Wilcox and United’s other power brokers over recruitment, squad weaknesses and a perceived lack of accountability at the top of the club after Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat at Atlético Madrid.

Yet for all the wider scrutiny around how the club are run, the more immediate reality is United need wins – and fast – as they try to avoid another season of damaging upheaval in what feels like an ever elusive quest for long-term stability, consistency and improvement.

A level-headed character by nature, Carrick is the polar opposite of the volatile, emotional Amorim and did a fine job on Friday of projecting an air of calm after Martínez voiced what many fans have been saying and thinking for some time.

Rather than subscribe to the theory – advanced by his friend and former team-mate Wayne Rooney among others – that Martínez’s outburst could “rip the dressing room apart”, Carrick wondered out loud if it could actually be the kind of catalyst or spark the team badly need.

But if that is going to happen, United must demonstrate on the pitch that they are as unified and determined as the manager keeps saying they are, because there has been scant evidence of it so far this term.

As poor as results have been, it is actually the performances that are understood to be giving United’s hierarchy more cause for concern ahead of a potentially defining week for Carrick. Beat Leeds, then Como in the Champions League in Italy on Wednesday and Bournemouth at Old Trafford four days later, and the mood could feel very different a week from now.

However, they will have to raise their game considerably to do so and hope some of their big-name players, including captain Bruno Fernandes and highest earner Marcus Rashford, shake off their early-season struggles.

Carrick scoffed at the notion that Leeds was “the last game I need right now”, but those questions get asked because this United routinely struggle against aggressive, combative, organised, hard-running teams who get in their faces.

Daniel Farke’s side are precisely that and have actually improved since they bullied United at Old Trafford in April in a 2-1 victory, their first league win at the home of their bitter rivals since 1981.

It was a game, coincidentally, in which Martínez was sent off in the 56th minute (United were better with 10 men than 11 as it happened) but if they play like that again – or like they did in their last league outing against Tottenham – they will be in for another very difficult afternoon.

There is certainly a persuasive case to be made for sticking with an extra defensive-minded body in midfield, as Carrick employed against Atlético, to help reduce the wide open spaces that have been exploited; Carlos Baleba’s energy and athleticism could be crucial.

“I don’t think about, ‘How am I going to get through this? How am I going to survive this? What do I need to do to look after myself?’ It’s not important,” Carrick said. “I understand the reality, but I’m totally focused on what’s best for this place and what it’s going to take to win games.

“We’ve had a spell where we haven’t won some football games. But correct me if I’m wrong, are we four points off the top four or something? So perspective is important and football can change. When we arrived in January, we were a lot further away from third spot and we ended up finishing third.”

United were 11 points adrift of third when Amorim was dismissed. They are seven points behind Brighton, in third, now, but are they capable of putting a winning run together like they did earlier in the year? Carrick wants his players to dig in and find out.

“I love the situation when actually you get some sort of struggle where you’ve got to find a way out of it,” he said. “I actually really enjoy it because that’s part of what drives you to have success. If you’re not ready for that and you can’t do anything that’s difficult, then you’re never going to be great.”

Nicky Butt, the former United midfielder, had claimed last week that Carrick once told him management was not for him. “I definitely wouldn’t be here if that was the case, would I?” the manager shot back. “It’s the best job I could possibly have.”

But if he wants to keep it in the longer term and not go the way of Amorim, he is going to have to get a tune out of his team, starting back at the ground where it ended for his predecessor.