Manchester United — authors of 20 top-flight titles and three European Cups — enter the November international break a point off the bottom of the Premier League.

Manchester United — a club whose lowest finish for 22 years was third place — haven’t finished higher than third in a half-decade, sit 18th at the moment, and are in more than half-hearted discussions about relegation to the Championship.

And Manchester United — a club with 15 players in the squad who cost at least $50 million to acquire — are looking like they’d be surprised to find success over 90 minutes on a Premier League pitch.

There was no visible jubilation after the club, at home, came back from a pair of two-goal deficits to rescue a point against a fellow Champions League club. That’s an immense problem, especially on the heels of a comeback win against AS Roma in the UEFA Champions League.

It’s almost like no one in a United shirt knows how to respond to positive moments and is guarding their feelings like a middle-schooler who heard their crush might like them back but can’t quite believe it. Put more strongly, they’ve become a walking fight-or-flight decision who never quite find the relief of leaving fight mode.

With a likable but over his skis manager who happens to be a legend from his playing days, the fans can’t decide who they like less — the administrators who put this team in their shirts and handed the full-time keys to the aforementioned boss, or the mostly-shrinking players sending Carrick into no man’s land.

Since Sir Alex Ferguson left, they’ve lost with a who’s who of managers who, were they to be given a podcast together, would be the top-downloaded one around. Two of their previous bosses have Real Madrid atop the Champions League table and AC Milan in a Serie A title discussion. Another one has another Premier League club in the top-four discussion.

The underlying numbers don’t show a 18th-place team, and that’s the problem. United have a club mentality problem from top to bottom and reaching way back into time. The players who won so much and have left the club still scream out with disbelief when the Red Devils don’t play well, whether managed by a former teammate or one of the biggest names in the game.

For many years, the club was known for out-performing logical conclusions, snaring wins out of lesser performances and even stretching the clock into the magical “Fergie Time” at the Theater of Dreams.

And maybe that’s the problem: United are measured by a champions’ yardstick when they haven’t fit the descriptor for ages. Strong players — whether legends of the game like Casemiro or homegrown ones like Scott McTominay, the 2024-25 Serie A Player of the Year — have been sent packing by the club in pursuit of improvement while others remain on the merit of yesteryear’s strong performances.

How in the world do they fix this?

Manchester United by the numbers: A mentality problem

Let us forewarn you: these numbers are going to perplex you. Some of them defy your eyes after watching the Red Devils this season.

Manchester United entered the weekend with the following Premier League ranks when it comes to work with the ball (We’ll update these numbers once the stats repopulate):

• xG: 7th
• Goals: 11th
• Shot attempts: 1st (by 15!)
• Shots on target: 4th
• Set-piece shots: 4th
• Total passes: 4th
• Through balls: 3rd
• Possession: 6th
• Conversion %: 19th
• xG/shot: 19th
• Set-piece goals: 20th

You look at that and figure you’re discussing a tremendously unlucky squad. The numbers make you want to write off the 18th-place start as poor finishing in front of goal.

Then comes the defense.

• xGA: 15th
• Goals allowed: 14th
• Shots conceded: 5th
• xGA/shot: 20th
• Set-piece goals conceded: 19th
• Interceptions: 1st
• Ground duels % won: 10th
• Aerial duels % won: 12th

Those are bad. But if we’re honest, they aren’t 18th-place bad.

That’s why we say Manchester United’s problem is in their heads. This squad is talented enough to compete for a top-four spot and they are performing over vast stretches of their games as a mid-table squad.

That alone would be a problem that puts a coach in hot water, but United have taken mid-table and rode it right down in the bottom three because of mind-melting mistakes and a terrible lack of focus and commitment to the minute-by-minute.

If Jurgen Klopp had his Mentality Monsters at Liverpool, Carrick has Melancholic Messes. This Man United seems to concede at the weirdest times and in the most avoidable situations. They switch off like a faulty fuse and are perhaps the best at reading the post-game hymn sheet.

This is one of the biggest clubs of the world and these results are unacceptable.

Performances like this aren’t good enough at the biggest club in the world.

Effort is the bare minimum and we just haven’t been good enough.

What makes the struggles scream even louder is that Carrick looked to have cleaned up a messy ship last season when he took Ruben Amorim’s out-of-order team and reassembled them into a working unit that climbed into third place on the table.

Only one player of consequence left that team: Casemiro. They bought three players to help fill his spot. Ten games in, the situation in the midfield remains unsettled and at times looks untenable.

Carrick’s not the man for the job long-term and he certainly doesn’t have the tactical acumen or managerial experience to right this ship back into a top-four finisher. To be fair to him, it’s true that he was never going to decline the job and there were reasons to hope he might display some skills we’d yet to see in his managerial career. He’s also not going to resign from a club he loves so much. He’s stuck. And given the big decision it was to give him the job full-time, they’re stuck with him.

Regardless of whether United cut ties with him during the international break or let him ride this out until January, this club needs to find therapeutic solutions to this current team.

It’s admirable that United fought back from one two-goal deficit and then did it again to get a point. They bailed out their keeper and then themselves. But most clubs would still be celebrating that moment. This side looks like it’s preparing for the next 2-0 deficit. Where will they finish? Would they take eighth today?