Pressure piles on Carrick as 10-man Man United beaten at Chelsea and Man City lose again

Michael Carrick's position as Manchester United manager was jeopardized further after a 2-0 loss at Chelsea in the Premier League, with Lisandro Martinez's reckless sending-off adding to the woes of the beleaguered English giant on Saturday.

It was a bad day for the other Manchester club, too, as first-placed City fell at home to Brighton 1-0 for a second straight league loss, having opened the campaign with seven wins in a row.

Carrick was already under huge pressure — and seemingly operating on a match-by-match basis — heading into the game at Stamford Bridge, for which he restored Bruno Fernandes to the starting lineup after dropping the captain last week.

It has gotten worse for Carrick, with United now on a nine-match winless run in all competitions — its longest streak without a victory since 1988, according to the BBC — after second-half goals by Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer.

“Things have gone against us, and gone against us in a big way,” Carrick said. “It unraveled quickly.”

Palmer converted a 64th-minute penalty awarded after Martinez jumped with a raised elbow toward Wesley Fofana at a corner and struck the Chelsea defender in the face. A video review confirmed the offense and the Argentina defender, already in the spotlight for criticizing United's hierarchy recently, was given a second yellow card in a four-minute span.

As Martinez walked off the field and down the tunnel, Carrick didn't even acknowledge the player.

“It has a major importance on the game," Carrick said of the red card. “A huge moment.”

United plunging toward relegation zone

United stayed on just one win in the league after nine games, and was one point and one place above the relegation zone.

With its next two league games against Aston Villa and Liverpool, there's a good chance the 20-time English champion could be in the bottom three soon — a desperate situation for a club widely regarded as the biggest in the country.

United's only two victories from 13 matches in all competitions this season were against promoted Ipswich in the Premier League and tournament newcomer Sabah in the Champions League.

United's next match is at home to Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday and Carrick said he expected to still be in charge.

“I’m just looking forward to getting the boys ready for midweek,” he said.

“I thought it was as good as we’d played for some time in the first half. We looked dangerous, we looked fluid, we looked like a good team."

Haaland scoring run ends in City loss

Man City striker Erling Haaland had scored in his previous seven league games — leaving him four off Leicester great Jamie Vardy’s record of netting in consecutive matches — but that run ended against Brighton in a rematch after their English League Cup meeting on Wednesday, won by City on penalties.

Yasin Ayari, one of the Brighton players to miss the team's shootout loss, made amends with an 11th-minute winner at Etihad Stadium.

With City also losing at Aston Villa 2-1 last weekend, Arsenal — which is tied on points in second place — can move into first with a win or a draw at Liverpool on Sunday.

“We were aware that we weren’t going to win all the games,” City manager Enzo Maresca said. He was the first ever manager to win his first seven Premier League games in charge of a club. “So this kind of moment has arrived ... we need to move on and win games as soon as possible.”

City's future continues to be shrouded in doubt after the club was found guilty of large-scale financial rule-breaking in an explosive verdict last month. City is awaiting a sanction, having also lodged an appeal.

Brighton, one of the league's surprise packages this season, moved into third place — two points off the lead — and has now beaten Arsenal and City without conceding.

Bournemouth and Tottenham win again

Another win and another clean sheet for in-form Bournemouth.

By beating Leeds 2-0 thanks to goals by Evanilson and Amine Adli, Bournemouth made it six straight victories in all competitions without conceding a single goal and moved up to seventh place.

Tottenham was one place lower but on the same points after beating 10-man Crystal Palace 2-0 for a third consecutive victory.

Palace stayed a man down from the 13th minute because of a straight red card to Jean-Philippe Mateta for a studs-up tackle on Micky van de Ven, after which defenders Archie Gray and Jan Paul van Hecke scored.

Aston Villa squandered a lead and drew with Fulham 1-1 after goalkeeper Zion Suzuki dropped an inswinging corner over his own goal line. Nicolas Jackson had put Villa in front.

Sunderland stayed in last place after losing at Coventry 3-1, next-to-last Nottingham Forest lost at Brentford 2-0, while promoted teams Hull and Ipswich drew 2-2.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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