Manchester United boss Michael Carrick said there could be no “hiding” from him or his players after their latest poor result in the Premier League.
Defeat at home by 3-0 at Bournemouth left United 16th in the top flight and without a win in eight games.
Carrick was applauded by the fans at the end, who turned on the club’s board and Jason Wilcox, the club’s director of football, instead.
Carrick had made the decision leave out captain Bruno Fernandes – who remained on the bench throughout.
Carrick applauded the fans on a slow lap at Old Trafford but insisted afterwards that there was no goodbye.
He told Sky Sports: “It’s difficult for me to have a day like this at this club and feel the emotion, the dynamic of how it was today. Not for me personally, but for Manchester United.
“I feel a lot of responsibility, I’ve been at the club for a long time. It hurts me a lot to see us go through this at the moment.
“It was not a goodbye from me. I feel sorry for my players, they are going through a difficult period. In some we can help, in some the situation is falling apart and the boys are feeling it at the moment.”
“It’s a difficult situation, there’s no hiding from it. I don’t really know what it looks like and what’s going to happen.
“I will always do my best for the football club and I will not change that now. I love what I do and I feel the responsibility – we will have to wait and see.”
United’s next three league games are against Chelsea, Aston Villa and Liverpool.
Former captain Gary Neville told Sky Sports: “It’s going to be ridiculously difficult for Michael Carrick to be Manchester United manager going forward. That’s the problem the club has.
“It’s horrible to say that. I thought last season the club should have gone for the best manager they could have got and not given the job to Michael Carrick.
“Because I felt this could happen so quickly, but this has gone very, very sour, very quickly and the club is a mess.”
