Michael Carrick, the Manchester United head coach, watches on as his side suffers a second humiliating defeat in a week

Credit : AFP/Darren Staples

Hapless, hopeless and utterly humiliated. And that has to be that for Michael Carrick. It is surely inconceivable that he will continue any longer as Manchester United ’s head coach. A proud club on its knees and a favoured son on his way out.

The former midfielder will carry the can. As managers always do. Even if the fault lines run so deep at United that it feels like they are almost irreparable. Owners – the Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe – executives, players. A collective failing of monumental proportions. Although, again, it will be the manager who goes. Carrick knows it and it looked like it at the end. He knows the score, especially after this score.

More than four years ago Ralf Rangnick, the then interim manager, declared that United needed “open heart surgery”.…