Man Utd keep going behind: 7 of 12 games this season

Seven. That's how many of our 12 games this season have started with Man Utd conceding first. Hull, Ipswich, City, Fulham, Atlético, Como and Bournemouth all scored before we did. At the same stage last season it was four. I've gone through every match in all competitions, using ESPN's match data checked against the season record on Wikipedia and the match reports, and the picture is worse than the table. We go behind early, we almost never come back, and when we do score first it doesn't save us either.

Michael Carrick is still head coach as I write this on Monday morning. The club hasn't said a word, but Sky Sports reports he's on the brink after Sunday's 0-3 against Bournemouth, and he admitted after the game that he doesn't know what comes next. So whether you read this as his charge sheet or the next man's in-tray, these are the numbers.

Seven of twelve, and four inside half an hour

Here's every game where the other lot scored first, with the minute we went behind and what we got out of it.

Read more: Leeds 1-1 Man Utd: no striker and no answer after the break

• 22 Aug, Hull (A), PL: behind on 17', Ajayi. Lost 2-0, 0 points.
• 30 Aug, Ipswich (H), PL: behind on 29', Davis. Won 5-2, 3 points.
• 13 Sep, Man City (H), PL: behind on 60', Haaland. Lost 0-1, 0 points.
• 20 Sep, Fulham (A), PL: behind on 63', Martínez own goal. Drew 1-1, 1 point.
• 13 Oct, Atlético (A), UCL: behind on 1', Barrios. Lost 2-0, 0 points.
• 21 Oct, Como (A), UCL: behind on 2', Paz. Lost 4-1, 0 points.
• 25 Oct, Bournemouth (H), PL: behind on 38', Rayan. Lost 0-3, 0 points.

One win, one draw, five defeats. Four of those seven first goals went in before the half-hour mark, and two of them before the second minute was out. On average we're behind after 30 minutes. In the league it's five of eight, and those five games have given us four points out of 15. Four. The 5-2 against Ipswich, when Bruno got a hat-trick after Leif Davis put them ahead, is the only time all season we've gone behind and won. Matheus Cunha's 89th-minute leveller at Fulham is the only other point we've clawed back.

Our two wins this season are Ipswich and Sabah at home. Half of everything we've won came from a game where we were losing.

Last season we were the side scoring first

Run the same check on the first 12 games of 2025/26 and it's four times conceding first: Arsenal at home, Grimsby in the cup, City away and Brentford away, all listed on the season page and ESPN's record. We didn't win any of them. But in the other eight we scored first, and after eight league games we had 13 points, not seven. Apart from a draw at Fulham, when we led we won: Burnley, Chelsea, Sunderland, Liverpool away. Five league games scoring first, 13 points out of 15.

So the going-behind number has nearly doubled, and that's bad enough. But look at the other half. This season we've scored first five times in all competitions and won one of them, against a Sabah side who were never going to hurt us. In the league we've scored first three times, at Everton, against Spurs and at Leeds, and drawn all three. That's three points out of nine from winning positions, against 13 out of 15 last season.

That was a different head coach at this stage last year, remember. Ruben Amorim was still in charge then, and Carrick took over in January and finished third. Which makes this season harder to explain away, not easier. He showed he could get this lot to win games. This season he can't get them to start one.

Corners, cut-backs and nobody switched on

Hardly any of the seven were moments of brilliance.

At Hull on the opening day, Regan Slater's corner went to the back post, Oli McBurnie's shot was pushed onto the post by Senne Lammens, and Semi Ajayi drove in the rebound on 17 minutes. Nobody went with the second ball. Against Ipswich, Abdul Fatawu got past Luke Shaw and crossed for Davis to fire home. At Fulham, Lammens saved from Calvin Bassey and the ball went in off Lisandro Martínez. The derby's the only one with a real excuse: Haaland's winner came after a long VAR check over offside in the build-up. But City had been down to ten men since Phil Foden's red card on 23 minutes, and we still couldn't score in 70-odd minutes against them, so I'm not having it as an excuse for long.

Then the two European nights. At the Metropolitano, Pablo Barrios scored inside the first minute from Álex Baena's cross while our back line was still sorting itself out. Eight days later at Como, Harry Maguire was caught flat by a cut-back and Nico Paz curled one past Lammens in the second minute. Two away games in Europe, two goals conceded before most of the team had touched the ball. I wrote about the Atlético one and the Como one at the time, and it's worse seeing them side by side. Same mistake, same keeper picking it out of the net, a week apart.

And Sunday. Ayden Heaven's lunge gave away a free-kick, Justin Kluivert swung it to the far post and Rayan finished it on 38 minutes. Five minutes later Leny Yoro slipped and it was two.

Two of the seven came straight from set-pieces (Hull's corner, Bournemouth's free-kick). Two came in the first two minutes. One was an own goal from a parried shot. That's not a squad being outclassed. That's a squad not ready, not organised and not alert, which is about preparation and set-piece coaching as much as anything.

Same keeper, same midfielder, no Casemiro

Who's actually out there when it goes wrong? Lammens has started 11 of the 12, missing only the Brighton cup tie, so he's been in goal for all seven. Youri Tielemans has started all 12, every single one, by the club's season record and ESPN's line-ups. He's been on the pitch for every opening we've lost. Around him the faces keep changing: Kobbie Mainoo, Andrey Santos, Carlos Baleba, Mason Mount. No settled pair in front of the back four.

The man who used to sit there is gone. Casemiro left when his contract ran out and joined Inter Miami in July, after a season in which he got nine goals in 35 games for us. The money went on the midfield instead, and the midfield that came in can't protect a back four in the first 20 minutes of a game. That's on Jason Wilcox and the people who signed off the summer as much as anyone in a tracksuit.

Up front it's the same old story. With Benjamin Šeško injured, Bryan Mbeumo has been playing as a makeshift number nine, and when you go behind with a winger up top and no plan B on the bench, the comeback isn't coming. Ipswich at home, with Bruno at his best, and a deflected 89th-minute leveller at Fulham are the exceptions. The other five tell you that once we're behind, the game is gone.

This one's on the dugout

I argued last week that the squad and the people who built it were a bigger problem than the head coach. I still think the summer was badly planned. But the going-behind numbers are not a recruitment stat. Who's switched on in the first two minutes, who picks up the second ball from a corner, how a side defends a free-kick on 38 minutes, how it sees out a lead at Leeds or against ten-man Spurs in stoppage time: that's coaching. That's preparation, structure and game management, and it's the bit of the job that's entirely Carrick's.

The strongest case for him is that it's the same group that finished third under him, minus Casemiro and minus a fit striker. Fair. But that makes it worse, not better. These players have shown they can start games properly for him. Last season, when we got in front, we stayed in front. This season we're behind in seven of 12 and can't hold a lead in four of the five games we've been ahead. The players haven't forgotten how to play. They've stopped looking organised, and organising them is the head coach's job. Nobody else's.

If he goes this week, the next man inherits a squad with a hole at the base of midfield and one fit striker. That's real. But the first thing he'll fix, the thing any decent coach fixes in a fortnight, is the start. Set-pieces drilled, a midfield pair picked and left alone, a team that walks out ready. If a new manager walks in and we stop conceding in the first two minutes of away games in Europe, you'll know exactly where the problem was.

Chelsea away is on Saturday, 12:30. After the worst start in 40 years, Stamford Bridge is not the place you want to find out whether we can stay level for half an hour. On this season's evidence, we can't.