"We have to keep progressing and winning matches, it's as simple as that." With these words, and his usual calm, Manchester United coach Michael Carrick commented on his team's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea the day before yesterday, a result that deepened the crisis facing the English club and raised questions about whether it could be drawn into a genuine fight to avoid relegation from the Premier League.
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Carrick knows the bitterness of relegation well, having experienced it early in his career as a player with West Ham United during the 2002-2003 season.
At the time, the prevailing belief was that West Ham had a squad too strong to be relegated. Alongside Carrick were English international goalkeeper David James, as well as Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, and Trevor Sinclair, each of whom played more than 40 matches across all competitions.
Yet the London club went down after finishing the season in 18th place with 42 points, the highest points total ever achieved by a relegated side in the Premier League's 38-match format.
To understand the scale of Manchester United's current crisis, it's enough to note that it collected just 7 points from its first nine matches, a rate that wouldn't give it even 30 points if it continued through the season. Has Manchester United really become threatened with a relegation battle?
A Manchester United fan would have to be close to sixty to remember the last time the club was relegated from the English top flight.
That episode is tied to a famous story about former striker Denis Law, who scored a backheel goal against his former club when he was playing for Manchester City, and refused to celebrate it. The commonly told account holds that the goal caused Manchester United's relegation, but the truth is the club had already lost its chance of staying up under manager Tommy Docherty.
Since then, Manchester United has never found itself in the relegation zone after 9 or more matches of a season, except in November 1986.
That came at the start of the era of legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who took one point from his first two matches after succeeding Ron Atkinson.
Since that period, the lowest position Manchester United has occupied after at least 9 matches is 17th place in the 1989-1990 season.
Now the club has returned to that same position, benefiting mainly from its rivals' slips in other matches played the day before yesterday.
Manchester United has not won any of its last nine matches across all competitions, its worst run since the 1988-1989 season.
Its only Premier League win this season came back in August, when it came from behind to beat Ipswich Town at Old Trafford.
This is not the first time Manchester United fans have watched their team in the lower positions in recent years.
In the 2024-2025 season, the team finished 16th under Portuguese coach Rúben Amorim after 37 rounds.
The crucial difference, however, is that United was then 14 points clear of 18th-placed Leicester City, and therefore was never genuinely threatened with relegation at any stage of that difficult season.
The current situation looks more worrying, especially with the poor points tally and the continuing run of matches without a win.
Tottenham's recent experience shows that big clubs aren't completely immune to being drawn into a relegation battle.
Last season, the London club found itself in 18th place, two points behind West Ham, just four matches before the end of the season.
That experience illustrates that sporting crises can push clubs with large financial resources into situations unexpected at the start of the season.
Still, Manchester United's relegation remains a weak possibility, given the club's size and financial capacity, with its revenues expected to exceed £700 million this season.
When Carrick was asked whether his players were ready for the mental shift needed to handle a relegation battle, the English coach tried to offer a more positive vision, saying: "You can look at it this way, or you can look at how quickly you can move up the table if you win matches."
He added: "That's the way we have to approach the situation."
But the core problem remains clear: Manchester United needs to win matches, something it has failed to do recently.
The team's path back to balance won't be easy, given the series of tough fixtures awaiting it over the coming weeks.
Manchester United hosts Aston Villa at Old Trafford on November 8, while its next seven matches include visits to Liverpool, Newcastle United, and Arsenal.
No official announcement has yet been made about Carrick's future at Manchester United.
Before the defeat to Chelsea, expectations pointed to him remaining in his post for the match against Roma in the Champions League.
But the team is currently going through unusual circumstances, and no one can say for certain what will happen in the coming days.
What seems certain is that a large number of players urgently need to improve their levels, regardless of who the coach is.
Manchester United will be without Argentine defender Lisandro Martínez for the match against Aston Villa, due to a suspension after receiving a red card against Chelsea.
Darren Cann, the former assistant referee who took part in officiating the World Cup final, described Martínez's action that led to his dismissal as "inexplicable."
The Argentine defender's future at the club doesn't appear clear in the long term, although he won't be able to leave before January at the earliest.
Martínez's contract expires next summer, while his recurring injury record has raised questions about whether to activate the clause allowing his contract to be extended by an additional season.
Although only nine matches into the season, Manchester United's declining results open the door to questions about the potential financial consequences of the club's relegation.
In May, football finance blogger Paul Quinn, known as "The Swiss Ramble," calculated the losses Tottenham would have incurred had it been relegated from the Premier League.
Quinn estimated that the direct revenue loss would have ranged between £197 million and £235 million.
For Manchester United, the financial repercussions could be even more complex, given the size of its revenues and commercial standing.
The club is among the biggest beneficiaries of Premier League television revenue, so the payments allocated to relegated clubs, known as "parachute payments," would not be sufficient to compensate for its potential revenue loss.
It's unlikely that the contracts of many Manchester United players, if any, include clauses allowing their wages to be reduced in the event of relegation. The club also earns huge commercial income from sponsorship and partnership deals, but it's not precisely known how much these agreements would be affected by clauses that could take effect in the event of relegation to a lower tier.
The financial picture becomes more complicated when considering the scale of Manchester United's debts.
The club's debts have reached around £1.15 billion, divided among bonds renegotiated in June at a higher interest rate, revolving credit facilities, and amounts owed to other clubs for player transfers.
These obligations represent a heavy financial burden even in normal circumstances, and could become harder to manage if revenues fall sharply as a result of relegation.
Alongside the sporting crisis, Manchester United is preparing to launch consultations with its fans on a plan to build a new stadium.
The results of these consultations are expected to shape the project's final plans, ahead of presenting them in late next year or early 2028.
However, the project faces opposition from sections of the fanbase, who renewed their chants rejecting the idea of building a new stadium during the defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The picture surrounding Manchester United is extremely complex, amid declining results and uncertainty over the coach's future, along with huge financial commitments and disputes with fans over the administration's plans.
Although Manchester United's relegation remains a distant possibility, the mere fact that the team finds itself in this position reveals the scale of decline that has struck one of England's biggest football clubs.
