Michael Carrick just keeps on winning with Manchester United. Against Fulham, the coach recorded his sixth victory in seven matches. Fellow interim coach Igor Tudor has been far less successful at Tottenham Hotspur: his second match was also lost.
Manchester United just keep on winning under Michael Carrick, and Sunday’s 2–1 victory over Crystal Palace at Old Trafford only strengthened the sense that this “interim” spell is turning into something far more convincing.
It was a match that didn’t go United’s way for a long time, with the home side looking flat, predictable, and unusually vulnerable whenever Palace broke forward. For roughly fifty minutes, The Red Devils were second best in both intensity and clarity, struggling to build attacks with any rhythm and leaving too much space between midfield and defence.
Crystal Palace took full advantage of that shaky start and struck early through Maxence Lacroix, who finished off a strong opening spell from the visitors. Palace’s lead felt deserved at the time: they pressed with confidence, won key duels, and forced United into rushed decisions in possession. United, meanwhile, found it difficult to create sustained pressure. Their forward movement was limited, the passing became safe and sideways, and even when they reached promising areas, the final ball rarely matched the situation. Old Trafford grew increasingly tense as the minutes passed and Palace looked comfortable managing the game with discipline and compact shape.
The entire contest turned on a single moment shortly after the break. Lacroix held Matheus Cunha inside the penalty area and, after a lengthy VAR review, the officials judged it as the denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity. The result was decisive: a straight red card for Lacroix and a penalty for Manchester United. From that point on, the match changed in both mood and structure. Palace, down to ten men, were pushed deeper and deeper, losing the ability to press or relieve pressure. United suddenly had more time on the ball, more space to attack, and crucially more belief.
Bruno Fernandes stepped up to take the penalty and converted it cleanly to level the score at 1–1. It wasn’t just an equaliser; it was the spark that United needed. The tempo increased immediately, the crowd woke up, and Palace’s previously solid defensive organisation began to creak under repeated waves of attacks. United’s passing became sharper, the movement in the final third improved, and the game started to tilt heavily toward the Palace box.
Just under ten minutes later, Benjamin Šeško completed the comeback, turning the match fully in United’s favour and making it 2–1. His goal continued a blistering personal run—his seventh in the last eight matches and once again he proved to be the difference-maker when United needed a moment of quality. Šeško’s presence gave United a clear focal point once Palace were forced into a low block, and his ability to turn pressure into goals is rapidly becoming one of the defining features of Carrick’s spell in charge.
Palace attempted to slow the game and protect what they had left, but the red card had changed the balance too dramatically. With fewer outlets and more ground to cover, they spent most of the closing stages absorbing pressure, struggling to get out of their own half. United, without necessarily being spectacular, managed the situation with growing confidence, keeping the ball higher up the pitch and limiting Palace to sporadic breaks. The final whistle confirmed another important step forward: Carrick has now secured his sixth win in seven matches as interim coach, and that sequence has lifted Manchester United up to third place in the Premier League. The pattern is becoming hard to ignore United are not only winning when they play well, they’re also finding ways to win on afternoons when the performance doesn’t click.
Elsewhere, the contrast at Tottenham Hotspur is stark. Spurs were beaten 2–1 by Fulham at Craven Cottage, and the situation is beginning to look genuinely dangerous. Under interim specialist Igor Tudor, Sunday’s defeat was the second in two matches, following the heavy 1–4 loss to Arsenal in his debut. Fulham were the better side for long periods and set the tone early, with Harry Wilson volleying in the opener from close range after six minutes. Wilson then added an assist to his afternoon’s work, teeing up Alex Iwobi for a thunderous strike just after the half-hour mark that made it 2–0 and left Spurs with a mountain to climb. Tottenham did at least create late tension when Richarlison, introduced after Xavi Simons—who started alongside Micky van de Ven headed in to reduce the deficit with around twenty minutes remaining. But it still wasn’t enough to rescue anything, and the grim run rolls on: Tottenham have now gone ten straight matches without a win, a sequence that is dragging them into serious relegation anxiety.
The only small piece of relief for Spurs came from Brighton, where the home side beat 17th-placed Nottingham Forest 2–1, ensuring Forest did not leapfrog Tottenham in the standings. Brighton’s starting XI included Mats Wieffer—again deployed at right-back along with Jan Paul van Hecke and Ferdi Kadioglu. The match itself was breathless from the start, with all three goals arriving inside the opening fifteen minutes. Forest did draw level with a particularly fine strike from Morgan Gibbs-White, but the visitors ultimately left empty-handed as Brighton held on for a valuable win.
Taken together, it was a day that underlined two very different trajectories. Manchester United continue to build momentum under Carrick, powered by Fernandes’ leadership and Šeško’s finishing, while Tottenham’s crisis deepens under Tudor, with defeats piling up and the table offering fewer and fewer places to hide.
Updated: 06:12, 1 Mar 2026
