Michael Carrick is adamant he can get Manchester United back on track after his seven-match winless run left him on the brink of the sack.

United’s early season is quickly unravelling, and Wednesday’s dismal 4-1 loss at Como led many to believe Carrick was to be relieved of his duties.

He has managed to hold onto his position for now, though, despite having not won a match since beating Azerbaijani champions Sabah in early September.

Carrick will be in the dugout for the visit of high-flying Bournemouth this weekend, with sources at the club insisting it is business as usual - if only for the time being.

But Carrick was in a defiant mood as he opened his pre-Bournemouth press conference with a heartfelt, off-the-cuff speech in which he promised to get United back in touch with its roots, repeatedly acknowledging the difficult moment in which the club finds itself.

He spoke for six uninterrupted minutes about the state of the club as he called for players and fans to be humble and patient as they work to get the club back on track.

Speaking out: Michael Carrick

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“I’ll start today. Just want to say a few things, really. I think it’s important.

“I think recently we haven’t had a good time. I think that’s pretty obvious, so I totally accept that, what we’re going through at the moment.

“We had five months of relative success in a spell where I was happy with a lot of things that I was seeing and that we were doing as a team.

“We haven’t done well enough lately. I think that’s pretty obvious to say, and we’ve had a spell that we’re really not happy with.

“Wednesday was a bad night. It was a bad night for a lot of reasons, and it was a bad night that kind of hurt a lot and obviously hurt me to see us play that way, to see how the game panned out.

“It was, as I said after the game, really unacceptable for us to play like that and to be like that.

“The supporters are a huge part of this football club. For me, to see the supporters have to make the effort and the time and spend the money to come and support us on Wednesday and have the feeling after the game like we all felt was a tough moment. I think that’s pretty obvious.

“My responsibility is to get a team on a pitch that represents this football club, represents the supporters, and they can be proud of it with the identity that we show.

“And we have gone away from that just recently in certain games, which I’m totally fully aware of and definitely doing something about.

“So, I think it’s important that we all recognise that. I certainly recognise it, and our supporters are the utmost of importance to me in this football club.

“For them to feel like they felt for five months at the start of the year, for us to have that about us and that connection and that real vigour and intensity and enjoyment and passion that we all felt through that period was something that we need to get back to.

“And we will get back to it and I fully believe that, but I think it’s important that we recognise that we haven’t been doing that.

“The foundation of this football club and the values of this this football club have been put down and etched for many, many years. And I totally understand, and I get every single one of them.

“It comes down to humility. It comes down to being humble. It comes down to being hardworking and being really proud to work hard and being proud to live up to them values.

“There’s a resilience about this football club that’s been shown for a long, long time.

“Whether that’s bouncing back from adversity, whether that’s comebacks, whether that’s late goals, whether that’s success, whether that’s sustaining success, there’s a resilience in this football club that runs very, very deep.

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I’ve felt it. I’m aware of some of the individuals and know them closely who have been a big part of that history.

“I said it after the game, Manchester United is always bigger – and it always has been, always will be – than any single individual. Bigger than me, bigger than any of the players, and it always has been.

“You know, I’m fortunate enough to know some players myself, and play with some (like) Ryan Giggs, arguably one of the greatest to play for this football club. It was never about Ryan Giggs, it was about Manchester United.

“Wayne Rooney was top goalscorer of this football club. His biggest thing was playing for the team, sacrificing for the team and what was good for Manchester United.

“Sir Alex Ferguson, the best manager of all time, the greatest for me, and working with him, his main priority was Manchester United.

“Going back to Sir Matt (Busby), Sir Bobby (Charlton), the resilience was beyond belief of what they showed, and the way they rebuilt this football club and, again, it was based on being humble, having humility, and hard work.

“We can never lose that, and I won’t let us lose that. We’ve had it for a spell. I feel very strongly about that.

“I think it inspires me a lot to live up to that and keep driving that with the players in the group that we have. We’ve shown for it for a good period of time and that we’re capable of it.

“At the moment, yeah, we’re in a moment where it’s not gone well, so we need to show exactly what it means and, you know, respect this football club. Respect what it takes to be here, respect what it takes to win, what you have to do to win.

“I’m not entitled to be here. Entitlement cannot be at this football club. We’re not entitled to win.

“We’ve won in the past, we’ve got an incredible history, but that doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to just win. I’m fully aware of that.

“It takes hard work. It takes a lot of sacrifice. You’ve got to invest yourself in the football club, and you’ve got to do a lot of things that maybe aren’t so nice but you’ve got to do it for each other, and you’ve got to win.

“I think it’s important we live up to that, and it’s important for me to push those values, and it’s important for our supporters to feel that moving forward.

“We’ve had it. We’ve kind of lost our way a little bit, if I’m totally honest, and we’ll get it back. I’m totally convinced we’ll get it back.

“We respect this football club, respect what it takes, because it’s very, very important to me.”