Whether Michael Carrick should be kept as Manchester United’s manager full-time come the end of the season has been a topic for debate for quite a few weeks now.
First and foremost, let’s give Carrick his plaudits, and look at the facts. In his first 15 games as interim manager, he earned more points than any other team in the league – including the two teams battling it out for the league title. He’s taken the team up to third place, and back into the Champions League.
On paper, he’s done an incredible job. But really, Manchester United have been poor for the last decade or so now. The holes have been patched over with semi-decent league finishes and cup runs, but realistically, the club is a bit rotten on the inside.
But still, in the grand scheme of things: Carrick has come in, turned things around, and done a good job. So why shouldn’t he be rewarded with the position full-time? It seems to make sense, and a lot of fans and pundits agree, too.
The reason is simple: he’s not good enough for Manchester United.
Appointing him as an interim manager when the club is in need makes perfect sense. He is well respected at the club, and knows it very well. He can come in, steady the ship, and leave things (hopefully) in a good place for the next manager to come in.
Longer term though, it makes no sense at all. The main reason why, and what I want to focus on here, is his tactics. (Or lack thereof.)
Tactically, Carrick is not a good manager at all. Since he’s come in, United have been set up mostly in a 4-2-3-1 formation – one of the most common formations in modern day football. In terms of the system he’s employed, well… What has he employed?
I don’t think anyone could really tell you exactly what he’s going for. The team much better in possession than without, with an evident focus on attacking freedom and fluidity (likely due to the versatility of their forward players), and out of possession, they drop a bit deeper and tend to stay very rigid.
But still, they are incredibly inconsistent with this. Even their pressing structure varies from game-to-game, and that variation doesn’t seem to be by conscious effort. This is one of their biggest issues, in my opinion. Under Carrick, they don’t really have an identity. You could argue that more time is needed for that sort of thing – but really, all managers have their own philosophy on the game.
Michael Carrick’s view seems to be “Go out there and score more than them.”.
In tight games, the decisions are the same all of the time. Whether the team is losing, drawing, or winning, he always makes the same substitutions, and at similar times in the game. There’s no clear vision; and nothing ever changes. The team could be up by 3, drawing, or down by 1. The game plan always stays the same.
There’s no plan B; no contingency plan. If the team is being outplayed, he just stands there and hopes that they pull their fingers out soon, or that one of the senior players takes the game by the scruff of the neck.
And that? That is a huge problem. At the top level, you need a manager with a good understanding of the game. One who is not afraid to change things up, make bold decisions, and change the game plan on a per-match basis.
Granted, some of those players (think Bruno Fernandes or Casemiro) have really stepped up in big moments this season. But relying on two or three players to bail you out all of the time is not a good idea at all.
Of course, it must be acknowledged that the issues at Manchester United run much deeper than the manager, and have done for a long time. Fickle fans, poor recruitment in the transfer market, a questionable medical team – with owners that, it must be said, sometimes appear totally clueless.
But this isn’t about that, this is about Michael Carrick, and whether he is the right man to lead this football club forwards.
And at the end of the day, with all due respect to the guy – it’s a matter of time before these players stop popping up so regularly, and those narrow wins turn into draws or losses. The fans will turn on him, and he’ll be let go. This exact thing has happened with the vast majority of United’s previous managers in the last decade.
Manchester United are a huge football club. Not just one of the biggest in England, but in the entire world. They need a manager who matches that calibre to lead the club forward and take them back to the very top, where they belong.
Unfortunately for Michael Carrick: he’s not that guy.
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