Man Utd came in for plenty of criticism after their opening day defeat at Hull City, but Michael Carrick is on the front foot this week.
Michael Carrick
Michael Carrick branded some of United's critics as "lazy" ahead of the game with Ipswich
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Michael Carrick has rarely lost his cool since being appointed Manchester United boss in January, but he was riled by claims his side showed a lack of passion in defeat at Hull last week and branded that accusation "lazy" ahead of the clash with Ipswich on Sunday.
Carrick branded a question from former Premier League striker Jan Aage Fjortoft over whether his side had shown enough passion at the MKM Stadium last week as "ridiculous", and he turned on his critics again ahead of a crucial fixture against another newly-promoted side.
The 45-year-old has garnered a reaction from his side after previous defeats during his tenure and has been pleased with what he's seen at Carrington this week, but again tried to calm an overreaction from the shock defeat on the opening weekend of the season.
Quizzed on whether there was enough leadership on show on Humberside, Carrick said: "It's one game. I think there's enough leadership in our dressing room that we'll have it throughout the season.
"Just because we lose a game doesn't just mean leadership, or I got passion thrown at me after the game, it's not just that. You lose two set-plays like we did, changes the game."
The United head coach was reluctant to pick out one particular reason his side had come up short in a game they were expected to win, but made it clear he felt the accusations of a lack of passion or inquests digging too deep into the failings on show last weekend were "lazy".
"Teams lose games, so there's different reasons. I don't have to give you the total reason, because we know what we're trying to improve on," said Carrick.
"But I'm just saying to you, I think it's so easy and lazy to just, team loses a game, everything's wrong. This is wrong, this is wrong, not trying enough, not enough passion. It's just like the obvious answer."
United were passive against Hull last weekend and seemed to struggle to match the intensity of their hosts, who were celebrating a return to the Premier League.
Carrick said he and his coaching staff had dug deep this week to understand what went wrong but they are clearly refusing to press the panic button at Carrington.
"We've probably played like that and won games, and everyone goes, 'What a great team, what a great coach, what a great load of players,' when we find a way to win 1-0. So, from my perspective, when you're analysing it, it's not the feeling and just that because of the feeling.
"We've got to dig deeper than that and understand the details of it. And we do, don't get carried away when we win certain games because we know it's not been perfect. And sometimes when you lose games, we know what we need to improve on.
"But there's certainly things that we can be a little bit clearer on, and calmer on in certain moments, to understand that, and keep the belief that things that we'll do well, which we will do, will win us games."
United were considering whether to appoint a specialist set-piece coach at the start of this summer and they conceded twice from those scenarios at Hull, but Carrick claimed that wasn't on the agenda and that he was happy with the make-up of his coaching staff.
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