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Michael Carrick will remain in charge of Manchester United this weekend against Chelsea. That’s despite failing to win any of his past eight matches. So where has it gone wrong for the United boss, and why might the hierarchy be sticking by him? Well, the best place to start with this, actually, is to look at last season.
As we all know, Manchester United finished the season so strongly, and in the period from when Michael Carrick took over on the 13th of January to the end of the season, they were actually better than any other Premier League side.
Running Stats Haven’t Dropped, But The Red Devils Are Less Compact
But we need to try and explain the drop-off this year. Why so good last year, and this year, so poor? Now, a lot of people have been speaking about Manchester United’s running statistics. Gary Neville has spoken about the players’ downing tools, and there’s been this conventional wisdom that it’s this perceived lack of effort, really, that’s, that’s really hurt Manchester United this year.
TNNews Sports wants to very quickly try and bust a little bit of a myth, perhaps, because if you look at the distance covered under Carrick last season, 112.2 kilometers, it’s actually gone up. Not by much. It’s virtually the same this season. The same goes for high-speed running distance.
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Absolutely right on the money, 6.1 kilometers, exactly the same as what it was last season. This, of course, is an average for each of those games, and we are dealing with a smaller sample size than we were at last year. So yes, there is still an issue with fitness, intensity, or whatever you want to call it.
When you look at the Primer League ranks, Manchester United as a club should be much higher up with the top teams. However, they were still able to perform last year with those similar numbers. So what really has changed? Well, it looks as though, for United, that they’re not as compact this season.
If you don’t know what that is, this is something that former Manchester United and Arsenal assistant coach Steve Round brought up last week when he was on the Premier League Show on Sky Sports. It’s one of his key indicators for a team performing well in the Premier League. Compact, essentially, is the distance between the back line and the forward line and from the outside midfielder on one side to the other side as well. So if you think here, the average time is when the defense is compact. Opta defines that as when essentially all 10 outfielders are within a box of 600 square meters.
So think of 24 and a half meters by 24 and a half meters. If they’re all in that space there, they are compact. If the defense is stretched, then that’s anything above 900 square meters. So again, think of a box about 30 by 30. You can see Manchester United this season; their average time defense compact has come right down to seven minutes. It was up at 11.96 last season. Now, other than that, the big changes have come in things like average possession and shots, where it’s actually improved. Increased average possession and more shots.
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You’d think these things would be more positive as well. The same goes with high pressing as well. Manchester United defending higher up the pitch. So, if those things aren’t the issue, then what is? What really has changed? And when we were analyzing this today, it was really not so much, and perhaps that’s the issue. If we look at Michael Carrick’s most used 11 from last season when he took over in January to the end of the season and then compare that to this season, there’s virtually no difference.
Few Signings and Injuries Have Left United’s Squad Light
Just two players, Youri Tielemans for Casemiro and Marcus Rashford for Cunha, are the only changes there. And when you start to look at maybe some injuries to Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford, with discipline issues, Martinez, and Fernandes, all of a sudden the squad starts to look really light. And while others around Manchester United have improved and evolved, United, once again, have stood still.
This will look at their spending over the past decade. You can check their rank in the Premier League for spending this summer, way down at 11th. We’ve covered this in great detail. Ipswich Town, who were recently promoted, spent more than Manchester United. They only signed three players, all of them in the same position. And all of this despite, as we have mentioned all week in our United-related articles, the record revenue for Manchester United in the last financial year.
This might be one of the reasons as to why the hierarchy is deciding to stick by him. Since Sir Alex Ferguson, only Jose Mourinho has got a better win rate and a better points per game tally, should I say, than Michael Carrick. So when we’re trying to explain why Michael Carrick has been perceived to have failed at Manchester United, we should maybe be asking ourselves, has Manchester United failed Michael Carrick?
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