Michael Carrick\u2019s spell as Manchester United manager is over just six months after he was appointed on a permanent basis, bringing a turbulent start to an abrupt close.<\/p>\n
The tone was set immediately. A 2-0 loss to newly promoted Hull City in the opening match of the season pointed toward trouble, and the weeks that followed only deepened the crisis. Heavy defeats to Como and Bournemouth, a derby humiliation against 10-man Manchester City, and damaging losses to Brighton & Hove Albion, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and Chelsea all fed the sense that the situation was moving in one direction only.<\/p>\n
Carrick had arrived with momentum on his side after last season\u2019s revival, when United climbed from seventh at his interim appointment to third by the end of the campaign. He simplified the team\u2019s structure, moved away from Ruben Amorim\u2019s 3-4-2-1 shape, restored Kobbie Mainoo to midfield and pushed Bruno Fernandes back into the No. 10 role. Those changes worked quickly enough to win trust. This season, though, the demands were greater, particularly with Champions League football added to the load.<\/p>\n
Instead, United regressed sharply. Carrick\u2019s final game, the strange 4-4 draw with Aston Villa, reflected the wider problem. The midfield pairing of Kobbie Mainoo and Youri Tielemans was exposed again, Diogo Dalot at left back caused more issues, and no substitutions were made until the 66th minute apart from injury-related changes.<\/p>\n
The defensive record was especially bleak. Only Lens, who recently shipped nine to Como in the Champions League, had conceded more among clubs in Europe\u2019s top five leagues than United\u2019s 30. United allowed two or more goals in 10 of their 15 matches and in each of Carrick\u2019s final five in charge.<\/p>\n
Recruitment also left Carrick with too little balance. The squad was rebuilt in parts, with funds focused on midfield while other areas were left short. Youri Tielemans has not adjusted to the demands out of possession, Andrey Santos is still finding his way, and Carlos Baleba\u2019s injury problems have only added to the strain.<\/p>\n
The pressure grew further when voices inside the camp turned critical. Lisandro Mart\u00ednez questioned Jason Wilcox over recruitment, while Fernandes openly challenged the tactical approach after the 4-1 loss to Como.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a decision from the staff to not press man-to-man and sometimes leave a little space in behind and try to get the ball in the first moment, to wait for them, to give them the ball,\u201d Fernandes fumed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut sometimes when you give too much the ball to these teams they get confident, they have so many bodies behind the ball that make you run a lot, make people get frustrated, and then obviously when you recover the ball the legs are, and the brain, much more difficult to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to expand on whether United\u2019s tactics contributed to the defeat, Fernandes added: \u201cThat\u2019s on the manager and on the staff to see it, it\u2019s not on me.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Carrick is out after a rapid collapse at Manchester United, with poor results and tactics exposed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1047,59,180],"class_list":["post-22426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-champions-league","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}