Reports suggest former player Michael Carrick is the favourite to be appointed interim manager at Manchester United, but what can we expect of his team?
It is clear from the names in the conversation to become Manchester United’s interim manager that their search is centred around trying to reconnect the fans with the club.
Integral to their decision appears to be ensuring a link back to the halcyon days of the Sir Alex Ferguson era. Former midfielder Darren Fletcher was fast-tracked from the youth set-up to the first team and has had a couple of games as temporary manager to show what he can do. The favourite to replace him as interim head coach until the end of the season had been former player, manager and ultimate vibes man, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but in the end, United look like they are turning to another club legend in the shape of Michael Carrick.
Carrick played 464 games for United between 2006 and 2018, all under Ferguson, and won 18 trophies in total. There can be no questioning that he knows the club. Talk of bringing back United’s “DNA”, which is essentially an aim to play attacking football, appears to be key to this appointment, and Carrick, having been a big part of a hugely successful period in United’s history, should have some of that.
But beyond giving the fans a beloved figurehead to get behind after Ruben Amorim’s ill-fated reign, there also needs to be some tactical nous. Fletcher’s two games in charge, a 2-2 draw at relegation-threatened Burnley and this weekend’s FA Cup defeat to Brighton, which has guaranteed that United will play just 40 games in total this season, have proved that “knowing the club” may be necessary, but it certainly isn’t sufficient.
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So, what will Carrick bring to his former club?
First and foremost, his arrival will mean an end to Amorim’s commitment to playing with a three-man defence. While in charge of Middlesbrough for almost three seasons between October 2022 and June 2025, Carrick’s side started in a 4-2-3-1 formation in 112 of 124 Championship games.
Michael Carrick formations used
He played with a back three in five of those games, but rarely made changes of formation within matches, instead preferring to make like-for-like changes to freshen up the players on the pitch, rather than changing shape.
It was something for which he came in for some criticism while at the club, so, following Amorim, who was similarly derided for sticking to his formation in the face of historically poor United results – he has the worst Premier League win rate of any permanent manager in the club’s history (31.9%) – Carrick may need to show a little more flexibility.
Ruben Amorim vs Man Utd managers
The football Boro played while he was in charge was pleasing on the eye, though, and should in theory provide the United fans with something they find easy to get behind and believe in. At a time when the club could scarcely feel less connected and likeable to the fans, that could be extremely important.
Of the ever-present teams in the Championship over Carrick’s time at Middlesbrough, his team ranked top for goals, shots, expected goals, successful passes and touches in the opposition box, and second for average possession (55.2%). It was front-footed, dominant football with the intention to grind down the opposition through keeping hold of the ball.
Crucially, however, Carrick failed to get Boro promoted. His side were top in those above categories – and by definition one of the better sides – among teams who remained in the Championship, but they weren’t better than the teams who got promoted. His Boro were never quite good enough to get out of the league, consistently falling just short.
Of his three seasons, the most relevant is his first – 2022-23 – when he took over from Chris Wilder, who employed a very different footballing philosophy, in late October with Boro 21st in the Championship and staring at the possibility of a relegation battle. He swiftly turned the season around, winning 13 of his first 17 matches in charge to fire them up to third and within four points of the automatic promotion spots by mid-February.
Based on that evidence, it looks fair to assume that Carrick has what it takes to turn an underperforming team’s season around while implementing a new style of play.
Championship playing styles in 2022-23
Results faltered through the spring as Middlesbrough won only three of their final 10 games of the season and ended up finishing fourth, before losing out to Coventry City in the play-offs, but by that time, Carrick had won the fans over, and that is particularly relevant for United given their current situation. The difference for United is that they are much later into the season and are only three points off fourth place. There is much less of a turnaround needed.
From when Carrick took over until the end of the regular season (excluding the play-offs) in his first campaign in charge, Boro ranked third in the Championship for possession (58.9%), passing sequences of at least 10 passes (379), and passes per sequence (3.9), and they were second for what are called build-up attacks, which are defined as open-play sequences of 10+ passes that end in a shot or touch in the opposition’s box (77).
They were hugely successful playing this new possession-based game; Boro scored more goals than anyone else in the Championship (65) in that time and ranked first for xG, too (51.9).
They didn’t only play slow, possession football, though. Much like Fergie’s best teams, Carrick’s Boro attacked at pace when they had the opportunity to. Only Coventry had more shots from fast breaks than them (21), while Boro led the league for goals from such situations, with nine.
Given Boro outscored their xG by a whopping 13.1 – unsurprisingly the biggest difference in the division – there was an element of the players being carried by the confidence Carrick had given them. Perhaps their regression over the next two full seasons under him, in which they finished eighth and then 10th, should have been expected.
For now, given United are planning to appoint a different, permanent manager in the summer, the lure of a new-manager-bounce-type effect for the next five months might be exactly what United need.
For his next two seasons at Boro, the numbers became less impressive as they lost momentum. Possession remained key but some fans grew frustrated at a lack of cutting edge as opponents worked out that Boro would struggle to break down a low block. They still attacked at pace when they had the chance, but a commitment to wearing opponents down with the ball ultimately became Carrick’s downfall. They tried to play like some of the best teams to get promoted, but could not replicate their success.
Championship playing styles during Michael Carrick's Middlesbrough reign
It is worth mentioning some of the challenges that he faced to provide some context to his failure to guide Boro back into the Premier League. Most notably, key players were sold throughout his time at the club, including Morgan Rogers in the winter window in early 2024.
Carrick also lost his team’s top scorer in his first two seasons at the club, with Chuba Akpom moving to Ajax in the summer of 2023 after scoring 29 Championship goals – the most in the league – and Emmanuel Latte Lath leaving for Atalanta United midway through the following campaign, after top-scoring in 2023-24 with 18 league goals. Tommy Conway, signed from Bristol City in August 2024, has proved an inadequate replacement.
Injuries also played a part, most notably during a terrible injury crisis in 2023-24, and then last season, when key player Ben Gannon-Doak, on loan from Liverpool, suffered a serious hamstring injury in February to miss the last three months of the campaign and extinguish any remaining chance of a late push for the play-offs.
However, despite these difficulties, it was a tactical inflexibility that ultimately did for him. Carrick stuck too steadfastly to his preferred style, and that meant patience with him ran out.
There won’t be many United fans who are keen to have another manager who is wedded to a particular style of play, seemingly to his own detriment. They have just experienced exactly that with Amorim and will expect some degree of flexibility from whoever comes next.
It may be that Carrick will need to adapt more than he did at Middlesbrough and, still so early in his managerial career, there’s no reason he can’t learn to do just that.
In the short term, the confidence he breeds in his players and the immediate impact he had in such a brief spell at Middlesbrough both bode well for his attempts to steady the ship at Old Trafford.
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