Inside world of Captain Chaos at MU: Here's what players saying as they fail to respond to Carrick

While the Manchester United fans who had gone ahead with a booze boycott of Old Trafford watched in horror as their team teetered on the brink of total collapse and head coach Michael Carrick clung to his job, you couldn't help but think of Lloyd Bridges as Steve McCroskey, the frazzled air traffic control boss in Airplane! 'Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking!'

God knows United have forced their supporters to hit the bottle this season, not least in the past six days when they have handed a two-goal advantage to Roma and Aston Villa (twice) and still managed to salvage a win and a draw.

But this cannot carry on. As cavalier as United like to be, this is not the way to play football.

Coming out swinging every game like a boxer on his last legs is great for entertainment, it's great for the Sky Sports cameras beaming it live and the Amazon Prime documentary makers filming behind the scenes, but it is not evidence of solid preparation on the training pitch.

Nowhere in the UEFA coaching manuals will you find a chapter on routinely conceding the first two goals being a sensible route to success. For all his bluster after a bonkers 4-4 draw with Aston Villa, Carrick knows it and his players know it.

'After we concede goals we show character, but if we do this before we can win much more games,' said Matheus Cunha. 'I don't know why, everyone tries to get answers for that. We want to be the best and show that we can come back. We need to show the mentality to do this from the start.'

It isn't just in the last week either. United were a goal down against Atletico Madrid inside the first minute and Como in the second. They were two down to Villa after three minutes and 40 seconds, the earliest that has happened to United in the Premier League era.

This is not a coincidence. It is not bad luck. This is in the mind-set of these Manchester United players, and the game management of Carrick – and that is what should worry Old Trafford bosses the most.

As if being in the relegation zone for the next two weeks after a start of one win from 10 games – the worst since Sir Alex Ferguson replaced Ron Atkinson 40 years ago – is not bad enough, United don't seem to be playing to a plan. They are not responding to direction. They are reverting to instinct and moments of skill when everything else fails.

Carrick made reference to it when he spoke before this game, admitting that the players are better when they don't think too much.

'Momentum within games, day-to-day, week-to-week, game-to-game, it's huge,' he said at Carrington on Friday. 'I think it's important with your feelings and your emotions to roll with it. Then your memory can click in and you realise, 'Oh yeah, this is what it feels like, this is how it should be', and you start seeing different things.

'It's all got to come together, but feeling, confidence, and that emotion and sometimes not even thinking. You're at your best when you don't think too much and you just trust and play on instinct, and I think we did a lot of that the other night (against Roma).'

The irony is that Carrick was so measured, so composed as a player. Now, as coach, he is doing a convincing impersonation of Captain Chaos. United's games are reminiscent of the high-scoring madness of Erik ten Hag's last full season in charge, devoid of stability or structure.

That is what Carrick's employers need to consider when they sit down to discuss whether he can restore the sanity of his first four months in charge which guided the club towards third place and Champions League qualification.

Now they are third from bottom and will stay in the relegation zone for the duration of the international break. For three minutes on Sunday, Manchester United – the aristocrats of English football – were actually in last place after Sunderland took the lead against Chelsea and Crystal Palace were still goalless with Liverpool.

That being in 18th place – one below Coventry – is somehow seen as blessed relief from the unrelenting humiliation of this season, says everything about the state of the club.

At the end of a week that marked 40 years since Ferguson's arrival and was celebrated by a dinner with many of his most famous players, it has been quite the fall from grace.

Which brings us back to the fans. They are a loyal bunch and once again serenaded Carrick off the pitch at full-time having spent much of the previous two hours slaughtering the owners, chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox.

Protest groups had urged them to boycott buying alcohol at the stadium to hit the Glazer family and minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe in the pocket. 'Your funeral not ours – sell up now,' read one new banner. 'We don't want a new stadium, we want new owners,' said another.

But they know their football at United. Was it support or just sympathy with a head coach who has done his best in an impossible situation?

Carrick says he won't walk away and they never do. On Remembrance Sunday, he stood there on the touchline with a poppy on his arm and hope in his heart that United could get themselves out of another self-inflicted crisis.

They did. Again. But how much longer can United and Carrick keep winging it, and believe that calm will emerge from the chaos.