Tactical changes, left-wing bias and a rejuvenated Kobbie Mainoo: How Michael Carrick fixed Manchester Unitedplaceholder image
Tactical changes, left-wing bias and a rejuvenated Kobbie Mainoo: How Michael Carrick fixed Manchester United | Getty Images
A look at the tactical changes which have helped Michael Carrick to transform Manchester United - and whether his success is sustainable.
If ever there was an advert for the impact that a change of manager can make, it’s Manchester United. This is a side that have gone from looking utterly listless under Ruben Amorim to beating the two best teams in the Premier League in the blink of an eye and the elegant flash of Matheus Cunha’s right foot.
The move to appoint Michael Carrick is starting to look like a masterstroke, and one of the best decisions that Ineos have made since taking control of sporting affairs at Old Trafford – a relatively low bar, perhaps, but the rapid change of direction under the new interim head coach has been rather extraordinary nonetheless. So just how has Carrick transformed United so swiftly, and is it sustainable?
The simple tactical changes that have set Manchester United back on track
It would be easy to dismiss Carrick’s early success as the consequence of the short-term psychological impact that a new head coach can have at any given club, and the players certainly seem to have responded well to the former Middlesbrough manager’s appointment.
Cunha, for instance, told the media that Carrick had brought a “different energy” to the club after replacing Amorim, and given how poor their former manager’s body language could be when things were going south – recall him sitting on his haunches in the dugout, facing away from the pitch during the penalty shootout defeat to Grimsby Town earlier in the season – it’s certainly likely that the simple presence of a fresh, energised face on the touchline and has been a factor in the two impressive wins over Manchester City and Arsenal.
Carrick’s willingness to offer opportunities to players who were sidelined under the old regime, most notably Kobbie Mainoo, won’t have hurt either. Suddenly a player who was dragging his heels while he waited to leave is at the centre of things. That’s bound to have a psychological impact both on the individual player and those around him. The change of coach has offered a fresh lease of life to players who were struggling.
Those are short-term fixes, however, and such psychological benefits don’t always last for very long. Fortunately, they aren’t the only reason that Manchester United were able to improve quickly enough to go from struggling against Wolves, Leeds and Burnley to winning two of the toughest matches they will play all year.
Carrick’s adoption of the 4-2-3-1 system which he preferred at Middlesbrough has immediately offered his team a tactical framework which suits the squad at his disposal far better than the complex 3-4-3 from which Amorim stubbornly refused to budge in spite of the evidence that it wasn’t the right fit for his players.
Mainoo’s performances haven’t improved solely because a change of manager has given him a jolt of energy and a reason to put his best foot forward, but because Carrick’s system has greatly condensed the amount of space in which he has to operate, and refocussed possession on short, quick passing interchanges, especially down the left flank.
United haven’t attempted to be balanced in attack under United – instead, Mainoo and Bruno Fernandes have both been drifting left, close to Patrick Dorgu, creating not only a team-wide heat map which has a stronger left-wing bias than a Cuban political rally, but also opportunities for three-on-two overloads down that flank and in the final third, and creating opportunities for the fast interchanges on which Mainoo, in particular, thrives. It was such a move which created Dorgu’s excellent goal.
Players who play better football when in close proximity to other players are now being put in positions which suit them. The bias towards the left side of the field has required Amad Diallo to plough a lone furrow down the right wing, but that suits him – he has the pace to cover the ground.
While Carrick’s change of system hasn’t allowed United to control matches as yet, with both Arsenal and Manchester City enjoying the greater share of possession in their recent encounters, it has permitted his players to play to their strengths far more frequently. Under Amorim, Mainoo was tasked with closing down huge areas of space and as a result playing more direct passes to get the ball to a team-mate. Those are his weaknesses, not his strengths. Carrick’s methods bring him closer to the action and focus the game on his strengths in transition in smaller spaces.
The same small changes have had similar benefits for other players. Dorgu and Diallo may be down on the team sheet as wingers, but they’re still tracking back often enough that they effectively remain wing-backs, which benefits Luke Shaw and Diogo Dalot as it allows them to stay in deeper areas while remaining in contact with the players directly ahead of them – which suits them as players who aren’t dynamic, overlapping wing-backs but are more effective with a more conservative style of play.
Casemiro is still operating as an anchoring midfielder but now has two defenders staying put behind and wide of him, which doesn’t force him to hare across to cover when one of the centre-backs pushes up wide to support the more attacking players – a change which takes focus away from the Brazilian’s relative lack of pace and means there are fewer gaps through the middle to exploit.
Whenever Arsenal attacked, they found that United had an extra man back on their right wing (their strongest attacking area thanks to Bukayo Saka’s excellence) with Dorgu tracking back hard and Shaw staying put, along with three defensive players holding rigid positions through the middle, denying space and easy one-twos, situations in which the Gunners often thrive.
Where Amorim refused to adjust his ideology to his players’ capabilities or to make adjustments to combat his opponents’ greatest strengths, Carrick has played up to the best qualities of his squad and taken note of what the other side can do. It’s not necessarily rocket science. It still worked wonders.
Can Michael Carrick sustain his early success at Old Trafford?
Nothing Carrick has done since taking charge has required him to make any fundamental changes from the system he used at Middlesbrough. The benefits of his approach, and the way in which it lines up with his players, has been evident – but that doesn’t guarantee long-term success.
At the Riverside Stadium, Carrick’s focus on condensing the field of play and prioritisation of short passing plays meant that Middlesbrough could struggle to break through against teams who defended in a low block, while also causing them to be less effective than they might have been against teams who left spaces in behind a higher line – the opportunities for direct passes over the top were often passed up with attacking players not primed to take advantage of them.
There is an extent to which Carrick’s relatively conservative attacking scheme was caught a little bit betwixt and between – neither direct enough to punish aggressive defences, nor as efficient at spreading the play quickly to work around deeper, more disciplined back lines. It will be interesting to see whether United are able to score quite so readily against teams who set out to frustrate them.
It’s also fair to note that United didn’t create many clear-cut openings against Arsenal, who had more shots on goal and a higher xG tally at the Emirates on Sunday. To score their three goals, United needed two moments of magic from Dorgu and Cunha – the kind of moments which can’t be relied upon – and a terrible error from Martín Zubimendi.
United took their chances superbly well and earned their good fortune, but Carrick has to prove that he can find ways to beat teams when the luck and the wondergoals aren’t there. He also has to prove that his affable and outwardly mild-mannered management style will keep his players motivated in the long run, and that he can find a Plan B when things aren’t working out as expected.
A relative lack of strategic flexibility could be said to have been a weakness of his during his time coaching Middlesbrough, who he took to the Championship play-offs in his first season before being relieved of his role following a 10th-place finish the following year. He did not fail at the Riverside by any reasonable standards, but neither was he able to find ways to break out of his tactical shell when it was called for.
Those, at least, are problems for another day. United are in the top four thanks to those two remarkable wins, and have the advantage of a lighter fixture list compared to their nearest rivals. Their resources will not be stretched as thin, nor should their players be as weary when the home straight nears. Carrick has rapidly laid a fine foundation for the rest of the season, and will have the opportunity to build something lasting on it.
His ideas seem to be sufficiently well-suited to his squad that this could, perhaps, be the start of something impressive, although it’s fair to note that many felt the same way about Ole Gunnar Solskjær when he first took charge of Manchester United on an interim basis. Solskjær ultimately proved to lack the tactical depth to sustain his success. Carrick now has to prove that he has the grasp of strategic nuance to turn a promising start into something more lasting.
Even if he does manage that, United will only be able to use that as a platform for future title challenges if they start correcting their many mistakes in the transfer market and gradually weed out the dressing room toxicity which has made life difficult for so many of their managers in the years after Sir Alex Ferguson hung up his hairdryer. Carrick is the right appointment for now, and may well be the right man for some time to come – but that will count for little if some of the many non-managerial issues of the Glazer and Ineos years aren’t dealt with.
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