The manager was speaking before Wednesday’s Champions League trip to Como, with Manchester United winless in six matches and dealing with a lengthy injury list.
“That’s Erik’s opinion,” Carrick said when asked about Ten Hag’s allegations. “Why wouldn’t I (feel backed)? I’m in this position. I have a really good relationship with everybody at the football club.
“There are really no issues and no problems with any of that side. There are certain conversations we have that we’re really clear — with Jason, with Omar, with the owners, and down to the players. It’s really important we’re all pulling in the same direction.”
Ten Hag, who managed United between 2022 and 2024, had accused the club’s leadership of breaking promises and empowering players in ways that sustained a damaging culture. Carrick said his own experience had been different, praising the commitment and unity he had seen from the squad and staff.
“Since I came back, the players and the staff have given us everything that they could give,” he added.
“We’ve had some good performances. We’ve had some performances that we want to do better and we can improve on. We’ve made some mistakes.
“But I have to say, the type of performance we put into the weekend and for large parts against Atletico, there’s a lot of togetherness there. There’s a lot of will and determination to do better and wanting to do it for each other, which is important.
“So in that regard for the group, I couldn’t be happier with the togetherness, for sure.”
Carrick also made clear that backing from the board would not remove the pressure to improve results.
“I don’t need any reassurance. It’s pretty clear. I know the role, I know my responsibilities. I don’t need anyone else to tell me when it’s going well or when it needs to be better,” he said.
“I know we’ve got to win football games for everything to flow and everything to fall into place.”
Defensive improvement is one of the most immediate challenges. The BBC reported that United had kept just one clean sheet in their first 10 matches of the season, against Azerbaijani side Sabah FK.
“There’s definitely parts of our game we have to improve to make things easier. I am fully aware of that,” Carrick said.
Injuries have made the problem harder to solve. Lisandro Martínez suffered a thigh injury against Leeds and did not travel to Italy, while Luke Shaw remains unavailable and Leny Yoro is suspended. Matthijs de Ligt is back in contention after around 11 months out with a back injury, but Carrick has had to consider makeshift options, including using Noussair Mazraoui centrally and Diogo Dalot at left-back.
The manager also defended the club’s summer recruitment, despite questions over why another specialist left-back was not signed.
“When we’ve got injuries at different stages, we can always look at what could have been done and where we could have improved,” he said.
“I spoke to you about making the best of the transfer window in the situation we had. This man next to us [Andrey Santos] was a big part of that. I’m delighted to have him. We had to make decisions in the summer. We did what we could do and made the best of it.”