Five points from five games. Out of the Carabao Cup. A draw away to a Fulham side that had won nothing before kick-off. This is where Manchester United are right now, and the trajectory is not pointing upward.
The frustration spilling out of the away end at Craven Cottage on Sunday felt like something shifting rather than just the usual grumbling. When the travelling support booed Michael Carrick taking Kobbie Mainoo off with ten minutes remaining, that was not just displeasure at a substitution. That was a fanbase running out of patience with the whole sorry project. Gary Neville, commentating on the game, was also seeing red. And honestly, neither party was wrong to be angry.
A Midfield Spend That Has Produced Nothing
The window just gone was supposedly United's summer of midfield renovation. Youri Tielemans arrived from Aston Villa for £35m. Andrey Santos joined from Chelsea for £50m, though he was an unused substitute here. While Manchester City were spending £300m on three midfielders and Arsenal brought in Bruno Guimarães for £75m, United were chasing opportunistic deals and hoping for the best.
The Fulham game showed exactly where that approach has left them. Sander Berge and Shea Charles dominated the midfield completely. Bruno Fernandes operated as the number ten, with Mainoo sitting deeper alongside Tielemans, but neither Tielemans nor anyone else around him offered control or presence. Alex Iwobi surged past Tielemans during the first half without breaking sweat. Fulham repeatedly cut through United in transition before the interval, only for their own finishing to bail the visitors out.
[As we have been asking for weeks, are United really as poor as that early Premier League table suggests?](/uprise/football/are-manchester-united-as-poor-as-the-early-premier-league) After Sunday, the answer looks increasingly like yes.
Carrick claimed United controlled a lot of the first half. Cunha, to his credit, was far closer to the truth when he said Fulham "put in more energy than us" at the start of the second period. The fact that a United player was publicly contradicting his manager within hours of the final whistle is a problem in itself.
A Rebuild That Only Works One Position at a Time
This is the structural rot at the heart of what United are doing. [The heat is already on Carrick](uprise/football/heat-is-on-carrick-but-wilcox-must-share-blame-for), but the manager is not solely responsible for a rebuild model that can only address one area of the squad each summer. Last year was about the attack. This year was midfield. Meanwhile the full-back options look nowhere near good enough for a Champions League campaign, and the final third remains deeply unconvincing.
Matheus Cunha's equaliser, which deflected in off the unfortunate David Affengruber, was the luckiest of escapes. United had been passive and disorganised before Lisandro Martínez turned a rebound into his own net to give Fulham the lead. A comeback built on fortunate deflections does not mask how poor the performance was across 90 minutes.
Marcus Rashford, who was available for sale only last summer, still starts. Bryan Mbeumo was inconsistent on the right. Joshua Zirkzee, who has managed five league goals in two seasons, was introduced when United desperately needed an equaliser. Benjamin Sesko was absent through injury, but Carrick does not appear to trust him anyway.
The verdict is simple. United are not in a bad moment. They are a badly constructed club with a reviled ownership, a mutinous support, and a rebuild that produces scraps while the rest of the league improves at pace. Carrick may or may not survive the pressure. The deeper problem will outlast whoever is in the dugout.