Why Carrick Isn't The Problem At Man United

Manchester United are 16th in the Premier League at the time we're recording. The display against Bournemouth off the back of a hammering in Italy highlights everything wrong with the current iteration of Manchester United. So, why has this all happened? Well, I'm Jacob Olsvald for 442's Resident Tactician and this is where it all went wrong for poor Michael Carrick. Manchester United, dejection. Carrick mentioned the lack of running after the Como game and that has been a gigantic issue during his time at United. In all but one of their Premier League fixtures they've been outrun. The only game they covered more distance was against a 10-man Manchester City and that is a real problem. Carrick before the Como game mentioned wanting to control games a little bit more but you can't control games when you get outran in every single one of them. Bar when you're against 10 men. Now, that doesn't just mean these lot running a lot to get high up the pitch when you're lighted or going forward, because as you see, a huge gap opens up when the defence don't follow. Now, many people may look at Manchester United and go, well, why can't we even counter-attack? It's a real big thing if Manchester United can't even hit teams in transition. That's their whole identity. But for me, the real issue with this team in terms of its running is the out-of-possession setup. If United look to even half-engage high, they just lack the mobility to do that. Here, they're doing some half-counter-pressing, and as you see, both central midfielders are in shot. Ideally, they'd have been more alert and jumped toward the ball to prevent a forward pass. But they aren't. The ball is then sent long, and Lamancs eventually makes a mistake. But look at the position United's centre-halves find themselves in. Martinez is wide, so is Yoro. As they make sort of a back three with Harry Maguire at the base. But they have no support around them if they were to win a first contact or have to battle in a 1v1. In that instance, the defensive setup isn't necessarily why United concede. Because, you know, the wind holds the ball up, Lamancs comes out and makes a mistake. But. The scenario that the fans find themselves in, where they're isolated, they are regularly in these 1v1s, means that teams do constantly look to exploit the Manchester United back line and the space in and around it. And that's why so many teams create so many chances against Manchester United on the turnover. This might be a real problem for Manchester United. I want to look at this sequence because you see the two United midfielders again well ahead of their back line as they initially had gone high with these two Bournemouth players. But look at Bournemouth's front line, their 4v4 against Manchester United's back line forcing them to engage in 1v1 battles and thus meaning Maguire doesn't have the option here to bring this ball down and let United get back to then play forwards. Instead he has no choice but to to meet this first time, heading forward into the massive gap Which allows Bournemouth to then pick up the second ball and attack in United's half without doing much work. Now, this is very, very easy to sit and go. This is solely on Michael Carrick. This is something that he should have fixed. But there's a reason that there's been these central holes under Eric Ten Hag. Then you've also got Ruben Amorim and now Michael Carrick. And that's because these four in the back line just don't fit a team that want to be even slightly aggressive in their play. Maguire through the middle is serviceable despite the narrative around him. He's decent in a high line but lacks the mobility to be really aggressive if his team presses high. Martinez has the aggression and mobility to step and support the press but I'm not sure on his positional discipline. And then with the two fullbacks You have Lenny Yoro who I think is a really really good young player but for me I think he's better as a center half who's dragging wide approaching a duel diagonally where he really just gets in and hits someone early rather than more static 1v1s when he's having to deal with how a defender how an attacker is approaching him and then you've got Diogo Dalot. Play the clip. So, on the whole, United don't have the mobility either in defence or in midfield to really be this pressing, high-intensity, aggressive side. Now, Carlos Baleba, despite the results, I think has had a positive impact and has almost negated this slightly when he's played. It's not enough to just have one player out of, what, five who can do that run, who can do the heavy lifting because Manchester United need a lot more than that. And at the moment, it's just leaving them like sitting ducks when the opposition move the ball quickly. Now, can you blame that all on Carrick? I'm really not too sure because this Manchester United back line, four of their back line, have been there for nearly five years now. That's something that should have been addressed. In this situation, Como blitzed them and United concede. But if we break it all down, Maguire is high and initiating some sort of press. But look at Mbeumo and Amad. Although their roles may be for Amad to come a little bit wider and support against any potential 2v1s against his fullback, and Mbeumo may be trying to apply pressure on the centre-halves. I think they've got to take some ownership and step out of that setup to recognise one of them should... 100% be applying pressure to Como's number five. If just one of them does that, then they'd have boxed in the player with the ball. Instead, neither look half interested. The ball goes horizontal and then through to the Como winger and Ahmad just does basically... Nothing. He doesn't cover either of the two options you'd probably want him to, one being that wide ball and one being that central horizontal pass. This gives Cuomo the opportunity to get into space and pick out a man who's been left by a United midfielder, and Cuomo have one of their easiest goals of the season. With Ahmad being in no man's land, not doing anything, basically, not closing down the progressive five-yard pass and not walking the winger who was free on that left-hand side. You don't know if this is a tactical thing from Michael Kyrie. It could be an instruction. However, something we do know, something that we can work out from watching Manchester United and not being in the dressing room, is that there seems to be a real lack of accountability in this squad. A lack of just taking ownership of situations. And that's not just Ahmad in that instance. I think he is usually somebody who works quite hard and does a lot. But from the rest of the team, There is no sort of, yeah, I'll put that on me, I will take this, which is what you need at Manchester United. The first Como goal highlights this perfectly, because Como pull wide, and if we highlight the United midfielders, we have one who's been dragged deep by this runner, that's fine, we then have one protecting that shooting space on the edge of the box, that's also fine. But what annoys me is, one, how deep the centre-halves are compared to the other two in the back line, and two, Matias Cunha. He knows his teammate has been dragged deep so why not tuck into this space that he would be in and close off that half space. If he does that then this common player's job becomes a lot harder. Instead the Italian side just play this ball inside to a free man and Nico Paz shows a bit of quality. Obviously that's a world-class finish from Nico Paz. The Champions League's a world-class competition. Now if you're a Manchester United player you're in a tough moment Overall, as the fixtures have gone, you see your side under a bit of pressure in and around the 18 yard box and you see this space there. You're not marking anyone because your role is not to go man to man, you're marking zonally and you see a pocket of space on the edge of your box. For me, you should be taking ownership and going, I'm going to make that space mine. I'm going to actually mark the zones and prevent that player from getting on the ball in the half space. Instead, Konate doesn't and it does just come across as seriously lazy. Just like Manchester United's transfer window. Before we carry on, a quick word from today's video sponsor, Norton VPN. Whether you're working from a coffee shop, travelling, or just browsing at home, you're constantly sending information across the internet. Norton VPN helps add an extra layer of privacy by encrypting your internet connection and helping you keep your online activity more private. It's simple to use, works across your everyday devices, and you can connect to VPN servers Across the world. Whether you're chilling at home or you're out and about travelling. So if you want to add an extra layer of security and privacy to your browsing, head to the description, click the link below and go and check out NordVPN's latest offer. Right, back to the video. The players were booed off with real anger by the... This summer, Manchester United didn't back Michael Carrick. I know that may be wild to say for a lot of people when you look at the transfer market figures they did spend 117 million euros in net spends but that means nothing. Now hear me out because yes the money you know objectively there's a lot of money that got backed at him. But it's a poor way to use that money. For the fifth summer, or however many summers in a row now, Manchester United have spent their money wrong. Andre Santos felt like a pretty good market opportunity, and although he hasn't been amazing, I actually don't think that that was a horrific deal. However, if you then factor in Youri Tielemans, also arrived in the same summer, who was also another good market opportunity. them two together just don't make sense. You have two players there who don't have exceptional engines and probably have players who want to be playing facing goals. Santos is someone who's maybe a little bit more press evasive with his back to goal but really you want these two facing goal looking to play forwards and they're not really tempo setters, controllers and dictators of the flow of a game because they don't cover enough ground, they want to play forwards potentially a little bit too often. So that means that you need ball security and serious mobility around them if you're going to play one of them in a midfield three. But if you look at what would probably be Manchester United's best midfield, we have Bruno and more often than not, Kobbie Mainoo next to one of these players. Bruno loses the ball often because he's a high volume creator, whilst Mainoo is great at keeping secure possession whilst progressing the ball. However, he's not someone who's going to eat up ground and cover large distances for a full 90 minutes, meaning you leave a Manchester United midfield With no real balance. You then go back to the team that started against Bournemouth and you move backwards looking at the defence. And you see no outfield defenders arrived. Now, I won't go into serious detail on this because I feel like we've talked a little bit about the back line, about Manchester United's defensive issues. But what is important to look at is if we look at the squad Manchester United have at the back, the average age is just shy of 27 years old. And that's massively dragged down by Lenny Yoro and Aidan Heaven. So what was the plan there? After rebuilding the midfield this summer and the summer prior, rebuilding the attack a little bit, Was the plan to then wait until next month and rebuild the defence? If so, then what? That doesn't make any sense. That's not how squad building is supposed to work. You don't just rebuild sections of your squad every summer. Because by the time they've rebuilt this full defence, they'll be going, oh, well, we need a new striker now. Oh, we'll go rebuild the attack again. And then it just goes in cycles and cycles. But I suppose this isn't how Manchester United should be operating. Either way, at the time of recording it appears Michael Carrick's days are numbered at Manchester United and he probably will get the sack in the coming days. But I'm telling you now, that does not stop the rot. If Carrick goes, there are so many more problems at Manchester United way, way above him. He may have got things wrong tactically and it's fully fair to criticise him, but the players, the players that are recruited, the way the clubs run are nigh on disgraceful. Or have been this season, at the very minimum. Something that isn't disgraceful is the 4-4-2 YouTube channel. So feel free to like, subscribe, and we'll be back again for some more top-tier analysis. Probably about Manchester United's next gaffer.