Man Utd isn't 'too difficult to fix' as Michael Carrick told to sort glaring issue

Manchester United are in the midst of a poor run of form but Michael Carrick has been told it is an easy fix, especially if he sorts out the team's leaky defence

Michael Carrick has been told that Manchester United is not "too difficult to fix" but their defence needs addressing immediately following his appointment.

The former player has arrived to take charge until the end of the season and will inherit a team that has won just once in their last seven games and has just been dumped out of the FA Cup by Brighton - ending any hopes they had of winning a trophy this season.

Despite their run of results Sir Alex Ferguson's former assistant Rene Meulensteen believes the issues facing them are easily fixable and has backed Carrick to make the necessary changes, but insists that their defence is far too brittle at present.

Even 19th-placed Burnley scored twice against them last week as they claimed a point at Turf Moor. Prior to that, Bournemouth came to Old Trafford and scored four times in an eight-goal thriller. United are currently in a run of one clean sheet across their last 15 games.

Meulensteen said on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast: "What I saw in both of the games [under Darren Fletcher], there’s gaps all over the place and opposition will exploit that. He has to come in, especially in the games against City and Arsenal coming up, and make sure that’s sorted.

READ MORE : Man Utd confirm Amad and Bryan Mbeumo status before Michael Carrick's first test vs Man CityREAD MORE : Ryan Giggs gives Kobbie Mainoo Man Utd transfer advice as Michael Carrick 'deadline' looms

"I trust him in his football ability and intelligence to get that right. I don’t think it’s too difficult to fix, in my opinion. If all the players are available I wouldn’t know exactly what my best line-up would be because you would have to work with players and see what the best connections are at the back, we talked about the goalkeeper issue, in the midfield there’s issues there, but front wise, there’s plenty of power in terms of creating and scoring goals."

United's defence had not been aided by the 3-4-3 formation employed by Ruben Amorim, which never properly clicked in Manchester. It was often cited how they were continually outnumbered in midfield, which also offered little by way of protection.

Carrick will be without Matthijs de Ligt, who had been among the more impressive defenders in Manchester, as he continues to battle injury issues. Lisandro Martinez has just returned with the World Cup winner bringing more aggression to the backline.

The new head coach has already admitted that his remit is to win games, and he will employ whatever means necessary. "We want to win games. It goes without saying, we want to win games," he said. "There’s different ways of doing it, of course, different scenarios, different situations in games that [mean] you might have to play a certain way.

Click here to read article