{"id":318621,"date":"2026-04-14T19:15:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=318621"},"modified":"2026-04-14T19:15:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:45:32","slug":"michael-carrick-defends-manchester-united-flop-after-gary-neville-criticism-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/michael-carrick-defends-manchester-united-flop-after-gary-neville-criticism-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Carrick defends Manchester United flop after Gary Neville criticism | Football"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Michael Carrick has backed the under-fire Manuel Ugarte (Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michael Carrick has defended the shape of Manuel Ugarte after Gary Neville said the midfielder has been \u2018well short\u2019 ever since he joined Manchester United.<\/p>\n

Ugarte was within the starting XI for the Red Devils for the primary time under Carrick as they hosted Leeds United on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The Uruguayan got the nod as Kobbie Mainoo was out injured, playing at the bottom of midfield alongside Casemiro.<\/p>\n

Things didn’t go well for Ugarte or Carrick\u2019s side typically, beaten 2-1 by the Yorkshire side in an underwhelming display at Old Trafford, not helped by a red card for Lisandro Martinez.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old joined Manchester United from PSG in August 2024 for a fee of around \u00a342m, but has didn’t impress under managers Erik ten Hag, Ruben Amorim and now Carrick.<\/p>\n

Neville has described the Uruguay international as \u2018really limited on the ball\u2019 but Carrick said he was pleased enough with how Ugarte played against Leeds. <\/p>\n

Asked if he was concerned over the midfielder\u2019s form, Carrick said: \u2018No. No no. I believe when he\u2019s played since I\u2019ve been here\u2026whatever\u2019s gone on before has gone on before, it\u2019s not for me to comment on. Since I\u2019ve come, when he\u2019s played and he\u2019s come on he\u2019s been tremendous. <\/p>\n

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Manuel Ugarte signed a five-year contract in 2024 (Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Tonight was a tricky game, not only for Manu, I believe it was just certainly one of those games where it was a tricky night. <\/p>\n

\u2018I actually thought, especially once we went right down to 10 men, he was really vital and he did a variety of covering for other players to give you the chance to attack, so actually I believed he did well especially the longer the sport went on.\u2019<\/p>\n

Red Devils legend Neville was concerned when he saw Ugarte alongside Casemiro within the starting XI, feeling the pair cannot keep hold of the ball well enough.<\/p>\n

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Ugarte\u2019s ability on the ball has are available for criticism (Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018After I saw the team, I wasn\u2019t sure about it,\u2019 Neville said on the Gary Neville Podcast.<\/p>\n

\u2018Possibly it was the Ugarte-Casemiro partnership in midfield which Carrick probably feels he has to make use of since it is the 2 he has got and it’s the hand he has been dealt. However it\u2019s not a partnership that’s ever going to work.<\/p>\n

\u2018Casemiro has been a world class player and there have been times he was driving the team forward and scored the goal but Ugarte has been well short since he got here to the club and if he’s to play alongside someone, he needs a football player beside him because he is absolutely limited on the ball.<\/p>\n

\u2018Carrick has not began him in a game, so meaning your midfield is blocked.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Ugarte faced England at Wembley with Uruguay on March 27 (Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The clash with Leeds can have been Ugarte\u2019s first Manchester United start in over two months, but he was within the Uruguay XI that drew with England at the tip of March.<\/p>\n

He has 36 caps for his country and can head to the World Cup this summer where Uruguay might be in a gaggle with Spain, Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Ugarte is unlikely to remain within the Manchester United team for long, with Carrick saying on Monday that Mainoo is barely coping with a minor issue.<\/p>\n

\u2018Over the past day or so, Kobbie just had a problem in training,\u2019 the manager told Sky Sports. \u2018So it seems small but large enough to maintain him out tonight. It wasn\u2019t definitely worth the risk, to be honest, so we\u2019re hoping it\u2019s pretty small and it won\u2019t be too long.<\/p>\n

\u2018Manu is available in tonight. He got here on and did well for us within the last game at Bournemouth and went away and played well for Uruguay so he\u2019s well in control.<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s been great in training and done great right through really and a part of what we\u2019ve done, regardless that it\u2019s not obvious because Kobbie and Case have played quite a bit.\u2019<\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Edwin van der Sar warns Michael Carrick made mistake with \u00a374m Man Utd star vs Leeds<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Bayern Munich hold talks over move for Arsenal and Man Utd-linked England star<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Michael Carrick rages at \u2018shocking\u2019 decisions in surprise Man Utd defeat<\/span><\/p>\n

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Michael Carrick has backed the under-fire Manuel Ugarte (Picture: Getty Images) Michael Carrick has defended the shape of Manuel Ugarte after Gary Neville said the midfielder has been \u2018well short\u2019 ever since he joined Manchester United. Ugarte was within the starting XI for the Red Devils for the primary time under Carrick as they hosted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":318622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20686],"tags":[14334,2793,1766,14930,5479,14114,6707,2311,14269,1458],"class_list":["post-318621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-carrick","tag-criticism","tag-defends","tag-flop","tag-football","tag-gary","tag-manchester","tag-michael","tag-neville","tag-united"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318624,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318621\/revisions\/318624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}