X
476
posts analysed
13 Jul – 13 Oct
English-language posts, no reposts
23% critical · 30% supportive
01What we analysed
Items kept per platform after cleaning. Bars show each platform's split: critical, neutral, supportive.
656
posts & comments analysed
24 Jul – 13 Oct
r/reddevils
14% critical · 8% supportive
YouTube
928
comments analysed
14 Aug – 13 Oct
Comments on 27 United & Carrick videos
14% critical · 9% supportive
Google Trends
3
search series
past 3 months, daily
“Michael Carrick” UK + worldwide, “Carrick sacked” UK
2,060
items analysedof 3,749 collected. The rest were removed: outside the study period, duplicates, deleted, empty or bot posts, media and large accounts, and very high-volume accounts.
02How the mood shifted
Weekly share critical vs supportive (of items taking a clear stance), with United results. Hover for details.
Weeks run Monday–Sunday. Grey bars: all items analysed that week, including neutral. The final week (from 12 Oct) covers only 12–13 October.
×2.6volume in the week starting 14 Sep: 267 items, up from 103
73%critical in the week starting 21 Sep, the first week above 50%
73%critical again in the week of the 1-1 v Spurs (from 5 Oct)
03What fans argue about
Items mentioning each theme, in critical vs supportive items.
Keyword-based themes; an item can carry several. Successor talk is dominated by Antonio Conte. Supportive voices mostly blame the owners, recruitment and players, and point to last season’s third-place finish.
04Attention is spiking
Daily X posts mentioning Carrick with United, and Google search interest.
Posts mentioning Carrick with United / MUFC / Man Utd, reposts excluded. Daily counts, UTC. 13 Oct partial.
Index values, not search counts: 100 = peak for that term and region.
05In their words
Anonymised.
“Carrick completely lost it. Seriously out of his depth.”
“I back Carrick, don’t get me wrong, but I think we made the wrong decision giving him the job full time.”
“I have a gut feeling that we are getting back to the glory days with Carrick.”
06Method & caveats
| Platform | What | Period | Analysed |
|---|---|---|---|
| X | English-language posts, no reposts | 13 Jul – 13 Oct | 476 |
| r/reddevils posts and comments | 24 Jul – 13 Oct | 656 | |
| YouTube | Comments on 27 United & Carrick videos | 14 Aug – 13 Oct | 928 |
| Google Trends | “Michael Carrick” (UK, worldwide), “Carrick sacked” (UK) | past 3 months | 3 series |
| Total | 3,749 items collected | 13 Jul – 13 Oct 2026 | 2,060 |
Each item was labelled critical, supportive or neutral towards Carrick. Weekly shares count only items taking a clear stance. Themes are keyword-based, and one item can carry several.
Caveats
- This is online sentiment among people who post. It is not a representative poll of Manchester United fans.
- Labels are automatic and checked by hand on a subset. Treat trends as directional, not exact.
- Reddit covers r/reddevils only. YouTube comment dates are approximate.
- Match results are taken from public match coverage at the time of analysis.
- Google Trends values are relative (100 = peak per term and region), not search counts. No “Carrick out” series is included.