Carrick sets out Manchester United's tactical plan ahead of Premier League opener
Michael Carrick has outlined his tactical approach for Manchester United ahead of their Premier League opener at Hull City this Saturday (12:30 BST), saying: "First and foremost, we want to win," and adding, "we want to be excited - that's why we love this club. I'm fully aware that we need to do it in a certain way".
The manager invoked the club's traditional emphasis on entertaining football, echoing Sir Alex Ferguson's remark that "I think you have a duty to entertain. We have to always remember there's a public to be entertained." Carrick is attempting to restore that identity after what the club describes as failed attempts by previous managers to mould United into a slower, more measured, possession-heavy side.
Carrick has instructed United to resume playing short from the back rather than adopting the long-goalkeeper approach favoured by Ruben Amorim; goalkeeper Senne Lammens has been involved centrally in that build-up. From goal-kicks Carrick's side have used a 4-2-4 shape with Lammens positioned between the two central defenders, while a fluid front four rotates ahead of four defenders and two central midfielders.
Pre-season work has emphasised building out from the back and creating trios of players who pass between each other to escape pressure, with coaching reinforced around supporting team-mates to form clusters of threes. Players are being asked to make third-man runs to receive the ball with time and space; a practice session example showed a vertical pass into Bruno Fernandes dropping deep, Youri Tielemans making the third-man run and being found with a first-time pass.
Carrick's midfield recruitment has been deployed to support these principles: Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans and Mason Mount have been cited as combining to help United progress upfield, while Kobbie Mainoo returned as a substitute in Saturday's 4-2 defeat by AC Milan. Against Milan, however, the midfield trio including Tielemans and Santos with the introduced Fernandes struggled to build a stable platform, with the side turning the ball over by attempting to play forward too often.
Out of possession United have trained to press high from the same 4-2-4 shape, keeping the front four high and narrow to block the centre of the pitch and to position attackers for quick transitions. That approach produced a chance-creating press in the 1-1 draw against Paris St-Germain, resulting in their equaliser; after winning the ball United found themselves four against four in PSG's final third, before Bryan Mbeumo scored. Amad was highlighted as curving his run to cut off a passing angle to PSG's wide player while applying pressure to Axel Koukaba.
AC Milan's pre-season win offered examples of how opponents might counter Carrick's system, using a 5-2-3 in which wing-backs dropped deep and central defenders could find them around United's narrow front four, forcing full-backs to cover large distances and allowing the ball to be moved on before pressure arrived. Milan's back three also dropped deep to bait United's front four into stepping up, prompting wing-backs to retreat and increasing the distance United's full-backs needed to cover; the piece concludes that Carrick will have to be nimble in defending against such solutions.
The season, the report argues, will focus on moving away from reliance solely on the counter-attack—a challenge previous managers Erik ten Hag and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reportedly stumbled over when attempting to remain direct while controlling matches—and Manchester United begin that test with the trip to Hull City this Saturday (12:30 BST).
