Photo by Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
Photo by Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
Michael Carrick followed the worst Man Utd manager in Premier League history in Ruben Amorim, and he’s picked up the key standard, as per Leny Yoro.
For much of Michael Carrick’s tenure as interim manager, the only thing he had to do was not be Ruben Amorim.
That got him to a Champions League place this season, and then came the task of actually lifting the standards of the club.
After listening to Leny Yoro after Man Utd’s 2-1 win against Atletico, it’s fair to say that Carrick is succeeding in that task.
Ruben Amorim reacts at the end of the Premier League football match between Manchester United and Wolves at Old Trafford in Manchester, England, in 2025.
Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP via Getty Images
Michael Carrick and Ruben Amorim as Man Utd managers split image
Michael Carrick and Ruben Amorim as Man Utd managers
Leny Yoro resets Man Utd standards
It was just over a year ago that Man Utd were sleepwalking from one loss to another, and Amorim was having weekly therapy sessions in front of the press.
From “the worst Man Utd side in Premier League history” to “there is fear of relegation“, the amount of stuff he got away with was unbelievable.
In hindsight, those remarks have aged brutally. So much so that even a stubborn man like Amorim admitted recently that he made a lot of mistakes at Old Trafford.
Carrick made him look like a silly underachiever, and now Yoro’s comments prove that United are resetting the standards systematically lowered by Amorim during his 14 months at the club.
Yoro said: Yeah, of course [we can challenge for the league]. We’re Man United, so we have to think like that. And I know we have the potential to do it, so we have to do it.
“The target this season is to win every game, to be honest. For the team to be the best, for myself to do good games every time, to win trophies, and to be at the top.”
Ruben Amorim vs Michael Carrick’s approach
There is value in being honest and laying out the problems clearly, but only if acknowledging the problems leads to improvement.
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Amorim’s approach was one of self-flagellation, where he continued to say how bad everything was, but didn’t have an answer to make it better.
He essentially fought against himself by giving the world ammunition to beat his team with when things didn’t go well, which was most of the time.
In contrast, Carrick puts a pin in the noise bubble that surrounds United instead of pumping air into it.
That is a fundamental change in approach, and hammers home the point that Amorim was simply overawed by the scale of this job.
United didn’t become the worst in the world when they lost a game, and he wasn’t vindicated all of a sudden when they won back-to-back games for the first time under him.
That discourse is best left to anonymous social media trolls and pundits who need to fill airtime.
Carrick understands that, Amorim fed it. The standards are back at United.