For now, Michael Carrick keeps his job as Manchester United manager.

He's hanging on, just like many of his predecessors did before the dam burst and the trigger was pulled by those upstairs.

But more than most the parallels are drawn to how it ended up for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a fellow club legend who thrived as an interim before it all went south as a permanent boss.

By the time Solskjaer was dismissed – he had multiple seasons, rather than the five months Carrick has had to this point – it was Carrick who stepped in to steady the ship for a couple of games as an interim.

It was a chastening end for Solskjaer, booed off by supporters in his final game, a 4-1 drubbing away at Watford, and things are unravelling at an alarming rate for Carrick as infighting among players, coaches and executives reaches fever-pitch.

Daily Mail Sport compares the end of the Solskjaer tenure to where we are right now with Carrick in the eye of his own storm…

The basic results 

Solskjaer was pushed out of the door 12 games into the Premier League season following the aberration at Watford, which triggered an emergency meeting that would last several hours.

Solskjaer actually started the season well, winning four of the first five and drawing the other, but a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa triggered a run of one win in seven that cost Solskjaer his job.

That run included a 4-2 defeat away to Leicester, a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of Liverpool as well as a 2-0 home defeat to Manchester City. By the time Watford put United to the sword in damning fashion, the writing was on the wall for the club legend.

United fell to seventh and while Solskjaer departed with the second-best win record of any post-Sir Alex Ferguson appointment, with 91 wins from 168 games in all competitions, United wanted to arrest an alarming slide and didn't dither after the nadir at Watford.

For Carrick, he guided United to third as an interim and after signing a two-year deal, has begun with one win from United's first seven Premier League games, as well as losing at the first hurdle to Brighton in the Carabao Cup and losing two of their first three Champions League games to an aggregate score of 6-1.

Where Solskjaer had credit in the bank after two top three league finishes – third in 2019-20 and second place a season later – Carrick doesn't have as much to lean on as results slide.

The 1-1 draw at home to Tottenham Hotspur, who finished with ten men, triggered boos from a frequently patient home support, while the 4-1 disaster in Como was extremely alarming, not least because players looked alien to the level, such was the gulf in class.

Seven points from a possible 21 in the Premier League is already putting hopes of back-to-back Champions League finishes in doubt.

Rudderless defence can't cope

By the end of the Solskjaer era the performances were disastrous, with his team so easy to score against.

Defensively United looked all at sea and were devoid of any confidence in the approach, shipping so many goals, noting the five against Liverpool and the four that followed at Watford.

'The worst thing is the performances, the team have looked all over the place,' Gary Neville said of Solskjaer's side at the time.

'[At Watford] the highlights, some of the goals, the defending is absolutely woeful, the goalkeeper and defenders and that's a back four, five that have played together a number of times. They've looked rudderless on and off the pitch.'

Carrick's biggest issue is that the eye test is so bad that both players and supporters have next to no belief that it's going to be turned around.

In Como, United didn't look capable of competing. They looked too late in the press while they were easy to play through in the middle while the back-line looked as bad as anything we saw under Solskjaer.

They aren't running forwards, nor running back, with any sort of intensity and it means United are one of the easiest teams in Europe to come up against right now.

Failing to change the style of play 

Individual mistakes underscored a collapse of performance under Solskjaer with his tenure ending with 11 mistakes leading to shots on goal by full-time at Watford, the joint-worst total in the Premier League at that point in the 2021-22 season.

Solskjaer’s United couldn’t keep clean sheets – which is an issue blighting Carrick right now – and both teams give the ball away in costly areas, as Carrick saw away in Como.

The signing of Cristiano Ronaldo was hugely problematic for Solskjaer – who didn't want to sign Ronaldo but the club felt they had no choice but to make the move once the Portuguese superstar became available – as it shifted the balance of power in the side.

Carrick isn't necessarily facing the problem of managing one specific superstar, but he's trying to shift from a transitional side into a ball-dominant team running a high press and his team simply don't have the physicality capabilities to do so.  

When Solskjaer’s United lost 5-0 to Liverpool the press was a mess and Carrick’s team don’t look coherent when they press, with Bruno Fernandes running forward alone and turning around to find that he isn’t backed up.

The similarity is that defensively both sides look so incredibly poor and having both played under Sir Alex Ferguson, they would have been well aware that success is built on strong foundations at the back.

That hasn’t proven true for Carrick and it certainly wasn’t for Solskjaer at the end.

Dressing-room mood 

Right now with Carrick there is an enormous absence of accountability from the dressing room, which wasn't the case in the final days of Solskjaer.

'It was embarrassing, the way we played today,' goalkeeper David de Gea said post-Watford.

'The first half was very poor - it's not acceptable for this club and the level of players that we have. It's another nightmare. There's been some difficulties but I don't really know what to say.'

There was, however, a damning indictment on the level of coaching when De Gea added: 'I have been in difficult moments with this club but we are in a difficult situation - we don't know what to do with the ball, we are conceding a lot of goals. It's a horrible moment.'

He added: 'It's hard to be in the dressing room now - we are sad, we are angry. Personally I'm hurt - it's a very difficult moment for the whole club.'

Pundits eviscerated the players, just as they are right now.

Jamie Carragher said of Solskjaer in 2021: 'So no matter how your manager has set you up or what his tactics are or whatever it may be, whether he has a presence in the dressing room or if those players respect him, who knows?

'But, those players and some of the performances and results they've given this season are an absolute disgrace because that is one of the most expensive squads in world football, one of the highest-paid squads in world football and Watford are pretty awful.

'I've watched them a lot this season and to lose there 4-1 is absolutely disgusting and a disgrace from those players.'

Alan Shearer, meanwhile, claimed on Match of the Day: 'It's quite clear from their attitude and their performance that the players don't want the manager. They've stopped running for the manager. They've lost respect for the manager.'

That was certainly a debate then: had players downed tools for Solskjaer by the end? He, himself, has since come out to reveal that he asked players at half-time who was up for playing the second half.

What Carrick is navigating is that club captain Bruno Fernandes, as well as summer signing Youri Tielemans, publicly questioned the tactics and approach, laying the blame squarely at the manager's door.

'It's a combination of everything: tactical, technical, effort. We need to try do better at everything,' Tielemans said post-Como when asked what's going wrong.

Fernandes was much more direct – and cutting.

'It's a decision from the staff to not press man to man and sometimes leave space behind and try to get the ball, wait for them, but sometimes when you give space to these teams they get confidence,' Fernandes said.

Asked if he meant that Carrick got his tactics wrong, Fernandes added: 'That's on the manager and staff to say, not me.'

The mood between players and manager feels much more strained now than it was in the final days of Solskjaer, that much feels obvious.

FAN MOOD

What isn't disputed is that Solskjaer was booed by a large swathe of supporters at Watford as he went over to supporters that day knowing that his sacking would be imminent.

'Ole can't complain, he's been given three years, he's been backed in the transfer market,' Neville said.

'David Moyes was given eight months and kicked out, so I don't think Ole can complain about the time he's been given and the money he's been afforded.'

The general feeling in the fanbase as it unravels for Carrick is one of apathy at how another regime has already hit the rocks, less than six months after Carrick was confirmed as the permanent manager.

Much of the anger is being directed at Ineos and those on the football board, not limited to director of football Jason Wilcox and CEO Omar Berrada, who many fans feel have badly let down Carrick.

Lisandro Martinez publicly criticised Wilcox and there is more anger towards executives in the boardroom right now than there is for Carrick, who many supporters feel has been a sitting duck after not getting enough reinforcements after a third-placed finish.