Michael Carrick | 2025/26 Manager Performances

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pocco said:
I can't say I found our football that great, but Carrick's arrival did also coincide with the downturn of form from the likes of Villa, Liverpool, Chelsea and a couple of others. The whole league was crap on the whole last season, otherwise I wouldn't have us as a top 4 finish based on our performances.

But we have 4 additional players now, all of which he seemingly wanted. We lost Casemiro obviously. But I think Carrick will be quite happy with what he has and can therefore be expected to improve on last seasons finish.
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I'm sorry but this makes little sense. Since Carrick took over, United picked up 36 points in 16 games, which is a rate of 2.25 ppg.

It has nothing to do with anyone else's form, if you take that over a 38 game season you get 85 points which is what Arsenal won the title with. You make it sound as if United were 20 points clear, Carrick appointed and other teams didn't win any games.

Whilst Chelsea and VIlla dropped off (Villa due to Europa League), teams like Bournemouth, Brighton were picking up points.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
I'd probably agree with you and I was vehemently against signing Ederson.

Seems like INEOS is pulling a classic Glazers special and calling Mount the "3rd midfield signing" because he's playing well.
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I would love to see that backfire on you
 
pocco said:
'It's barely August' on the 6th August is a new one. I love watching these arguments each year - incredible amounts of copium on display.

The transfer window isn't even open yet.

It's only July.

We still have two weeks.

We have made some big signings near the deadline.

If we drop points in our first game then we'll pull the chequebook out.

*window closes*

Glazers out, Ratcliffe out, shit season ahead.
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The same lines get peddled every year without fail
 
Expectations are top 4/5 and compete in the cups. This squad is still, understandably, way off a title challenge I feel (Although you never know).
 
Irwin99 said:
Expectations are top 4/5 and compete in the cups. This squad is still, understandably, way off a title challenge I feel (Although you never know).
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I agree it is, but it could make cl again.
 
Even if we make signings now, (We still need a lb and a cm), it will feel very late and very similar to previous years.
Carrick seems to have had a no win situation. If he had done well but missed out CL, it feels like more signings would have been made for the squad (but carrick would have not got the job)

Given he got CL football, it seems like, what weve seen in previous years. The transfers then on are at a minimum.
Obviously we want the approach of wanting players that want to play for us and not to kill a wage structure. But I cant believe out of all the football clubs and players out there, we have been unable to find a cm that would be technically good, and willing to play for us which would improve the squad.

We need a few factors to all go a positive way:
-Santos to be an amazing signing
-Tielemans to have a good year
-Bruno to basically emulate last year
-A CB partnership that doesnt change / get injured.
-Sesko/Cunha/Mbuemo to all have good seasons in front of goal.

Obviously that could be said about a few clubs, but the depth other clubs have probably trump us right now (especially with Ugarte' injury and our inability to move him on)
 
pocco said:
I can't say I found our football that great, but Carrick's arrival did also coincide with the downturn of form from the likes of Villa, Liverpool, Chelsea and a couple of others.
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I see what you’re saying. Carrick is such a great coach that he made other teams worse.
 
I think we need to clear a few things up.

Firstly, despite some suggestions otherwise, Amorim wasn’t fired because he was difficult to work with. He was fired because he was difficult to work, whilst more importantly being utterly shit at his job.

Carrick hasn’t been kept on because he’s a yes man. He’s been kept on because he was given a shite job half way through a season and did really well and got us third. Sacking him would have been idiocy.

He’s not being thrown under the bus by us not completing all of our business, anymore than any other manager in the league who manages a team who inevitably sign players after the season has started.

Yes, it would have been nice if we’d managed to get everything sorted, but having a player available for an extra couple of weeks of preseason rondo’s is not going to make a measurable difference to our fortunes this season.
 
croadyman said:
Ideally yes I would want the transfers completed by then so Carrick has the players to get a full pre season. I also wish the likes of Whitwell and Ducker would belt up if all they are gonna say is suggest we may not sign a third CM.
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Are you really telling others to belt up?!
 
pocco said:
I can't say I found our football that great, but Carrick's arrival did also coincide with the downturn of form from the likes of Villa, Liverpool, Chelsea and a couple of others. The whole league was crap on the whole last season, otherwise I wouldn't have us as a top 4 finish based on our performances.

But we have 4 additional players now, all of which he seemingly wanted. We lost Casemiro obviously. But I think Carrick will be quite happy with what he has and can therefore be expected to improve on last seasons finish.
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romufc said:
I'm sorry but this makes little sense. Since Carrick took over, United picked up 36 points in 16 games, which is a rate of 2.25 ppg.

It has nothing to do with anyone else's form, if you take that over a 38 game season you get 85 points which is what Arsenal won the title with. You make it sound as if United were 20 points clear, Carrick appointed and other teams didn't win any games.

Whilst Chelsea and VIlla dropped off (Villa due to Europa League), teams like Bournemouth, Brighton were picking up points.
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Even if you take into account the whole season, and not just Carrick's games. We finished on 71 points, which always gets you CL qualification anyway. This is why I don't panic about this "the competition will be stronger this year" that gets spouted every summer - ultimately if we hit a respectable minimum points total, history tells us there's nothing anyone else is going to do to stop us getting top 5. Five other sides are not going to get 70+ points for example, it's unheard of.

I guess you can argue your rivals being stronger means your head-to-head games become more difficult and so that effects your points total. But in general, just have a strong transfer window and worry about your own points tally and the rest will take care of itself.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
I mean I guess if you want to stick your head in the sand and ignore every report out there then sure we don't know. But anyone who's rational could tell you it was pretty clear the club wanted Anderson, and then Fernandes, and Tchoumeni. It also seems incredibly obvious that we panicked and tanked the Ederson deal once we learned Santos was available instead.
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How’s that panicking though? Doesn’t that mean Santos was someone high up on our lists but was considered ungettable and as soon as he became feasible we pulled out of the Ederson deal. Is Santos less than half the player Anderson is? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be surprised if 3 years down the road he’s considered every bit as highly as Anderson.
 
Olecurls99 said:
I count 23 senior pros at the club. We might not have quality throughout but you can only register 25 players for the CL iirc so we're definitely not thin.
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If the club considers Dorgu an attacker:

Forwards: We are good here, especially with Lacey seemingly pushing for minutes now. No complaints although I wanted a LW.

Midfield: We are sitting on 3 CM's/CDMs + Mason Mount who can't be relied upon at all health wise. If one of those 3 has fitness issues we are going to be starting the same combination constantly in 4 different competitions

Defense: We have 1 senior left back and he's struggled to consistently play year over year and is now 30 years old. Two of our senior CB's are crocks (and currently injured) and another is 33 heading into this season. RB we are fine with Maz and Dalot.

That's pretty fecking thin for me in midfield and defense, especially when you factor in 4 of the senior players in those positions are sicknotes in recent years.
 
Ole's screen said:
How’s that panicking though? Doesn’t that mean Santos was someone high up on our lists but was considered ungettable and as soon as he became feasible we pulled out of the Ederson deal. Is Santos less than half the player Anderson is? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be surprised if 3 years down the road he’s considered every bit as highly as Anderson.
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Why would he ever be considered "ungettable"? We aren't talking about Pedri here, he was solid in spurts for that horrendous Chelsea side but by all accounts wasn't part of their mainstay lineup going into this season. This is sort of my point, our management seems to have an awful read on the markets and who is available/what price they will command. We were apparently enamored with Anderson but everyone and their mother could have told you he'd be going for 100m minimum after the season he had.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
If the club considers Dorgu an attacker:

Forwards: We are good here, especially with Lacey seemingly pushing for minutes now. No complaints although I wanted a LW.

Midfield: We are sitting on 3 CM's/CDMs + Mason Mount who can't be relied upon at all health wise. If one of those 3 has fitness issues we are going to be starting the same combination constantly in 4 different competitions

Defense: We have 1 senior left back and he's struggled to consistently play year over year and is now 30 years old. Two of our senior CB's are crocks (and currently injured) and another is 33 heading into this season. RB we are fine with Maz and Dalot.

That's pretty fecking thin for me in midfield and defense, especially when you factor in 4 of the senior players in those positions are sicknotes in recent years.
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One left back signing is the minimum that we still have to do this summer IMO. Get that and the depth is good. Anything else will need to be replacements. If we want another mid, I would say it has to come on the back of selling Zirkzee with Mount pushing up to being the backup 10 rather than one of the 4 mids. If we want another forward or winger, we gotta sell Rashford. If we want to address CB, we gotta sell Martinez. I'd say at most one of those 3 situations happen? But who knows. I'm not really panicked about anything in our squad but the top worry is left back, we need depth/competition for Shaw. I'd be very comfortable with the season ahead if we sign Lewis Skelly or Hall and that's it.
 
Top_Bins said:
They know sweet FA but it sends people off into hysterics.
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There's also a decent chance the club brief certain narratives to journalists so they don't go into transfer negotiations looking so desperate. Whether that strategy actually works is a different question, but I'd be surprised if the plan has changed on signing a third midfielder.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Why would he ever be considered "ungettable"? We aren't talking about Pedri here, he was solid in spurts for that horrendous Chelsea side but by all accounts wasn't part of their mainstay lineup going into this season. This is sort of my point, our management seems to have an awful read on the markets and who is available/what price they will command. We were apparently enamored with Anderson but everyone and their mother could have told you he'd be going for 100m minimum after the season he had.
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He was basically first choice for a bit under Rosenior and 1st backup for midfield in the worst case scenario, and is the right age to make a step up soon to boot! Kinda like Amad or Yoro/Heaven for us. Would you consider them gettable by Chelsea?
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
If the club considers Dorgu an attacker:

Forwards: We are good here, especially with Lacey seemingly pushing for minutes now. No complaints although I wanted a LW.

Midfield: We are sitting on 3 CM's/CDMs + Mason Mount who can't be relied upon at all health wise. If one of those 3 has fitness issues we are going to be starting the same combination constantly in 4 different competitions

Defense: We have 1 senior left back and he's struggled to consistently play year over year and is now 30 years old. Two of our senior CB's are crocks (and currently injured) and another is 33 heading into this season. RB we are fine with Maz and Dalot.

That's pretty fecking thin for me in midfield and defense, especially when you factor in 4 of the senior players in those positions are sicknotes in recent years.
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It seems like the club don't consider Dorgu a full back whatsoever, which is insane to me considering his biggest strengths and the fact that that’s where he played in Italy.

Maybe Carrick just wants to show Shaw that left full is his to keep for the moment and Dorgu will go in there should Shaw get injured.

I don't know many top clubs with 4 midfielders fighting for 2 positions. I could understand us maybe going for an older head on the cheap as the 4th man but spending big in there again doesn't make sense.

We have 5 senior centre backs. Again I don't know many clubs who have 6. If we lose 4 of them to injury then I'm afraid you curse your luck and play a youth player.

We can only register 25 players and we're not gonna ship injury prone players so we'll have to suck it up if we face a huge injury crisis just like everyone else.

We might sign an attacker if we can ship Rashford and Zirkzee. Again a canny cheap midfield signing makes sense, and if we're to persist with Dorgu as an attacker and Leon and Amass can't be trusted to play, then maybe another shrewd deal can be done to get in a reliable Shaw backup.
 
Olecurls99 said:
I don't know many top clubs with 4 midfielders fighting for 2 positions. I could understand us maybe going for an older head on the cheap as the 4th man but spending big in there again doesn't make sense.
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I think we'd find two players per position is completely standard, it's just maybe the 4th option sometimes can be under the radar who don't expect to play too much.

Arsenal have Rice, Bruno G, MLS, Zubimendi, Merino going in this season.

Last season Chelsea had Caicedo, Santos, Enzo, Lavia, Essugo for example.


On that front, maybe you'd say signing an expensive high profile midfielder at this stage might not make loads of sense. But we also don't really have any superstar names that have to play near enough every game in that midfield in the same way Arsenal do with a Rice or Chelsea with Enzo+Caicedo - when there's a hierarchy like that then it limits opportunities for others. We could have 4 midfielders on fairly equal footing in terms of hierarchy and it genuinely comes down to form, fitness, rotation, tactical considerations on who plays game to game.
 
Unlike others I wouldn't mind if the club is holding out for best deals even if running down the clock, provided they do complete them. We have got 2 CMs earlier in the window and Santos has had time to integrate with the squad and Tielemens is a pro in PL and ideally should get get going immediately. Our attack is experienced and settled, and even for defence, an incoming LB would surely ease into the squad with Shaw/Dorgu starting.
 
Dominos said:
I think we'd find two players per position is completely standard, it's just maybe the 4th option sometimes can be under the radar who don't expect to play too much.

Arsenal have Rice, Bruno G, MLS, Zubimendi, Merino going in this season.

Last season Chelsea had Caicedo, Santos, Enzo, Lavia, Essugo for example.


On that front, maybe you'd say signing an expensive high profile midfielder at this stage might not make loads of sense. But we also don't really have any superstar names that have to play near enough every game in that midfield in the same way Arsenal do with a Rice or Chelsea with Enzo+Caicedo - when there's a hierarchy like that then it limits opportunities for others. We could have 4 midfielders on fairly equal footing in terms of hierarchy and it genuinely comes down to form, fitness, rotation, tactical considerations on who plays game to game.
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The other thing which I forgot about is Ugarte. Now he probably won't play a lot this season but he's another highly paid senior pro on the books which must come into the thinking here.

I genuinely think United are happy enough with the squad now and believe it's enough to get top 4/5. Any new signings will be based on whether they ship players.
 
Olecurls99 said:
The other thing which I forgot about is Ugarte. Now he probably won't play a lot this season but he's another highly paid senior pro on the books which must come into the thinking here.

I genuinely think United are happy enough with the squad now and believe it's enough to get top 4/5. Any new signings will be based on whether they ship players.
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It’s staggeringly obvious that Carrick just a little sort of telling Ugarte to feck off, the way he’s been using Ugarte last season. And now he’s injured also and can’t be part of the squad.
 
Olecurls99 said:
The other thing which I forgot about is Ugarte. Now he probably won't play a lot this season but he's another highly paid senior pro on the books which must come into the thinking here.

I genuinely think United are happy enough with the squad now and believe it's enough to get top 4/5. Any new signings will be based on whether they ship players.
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I don’t think he comes into the thinking at all - last season Carrick would barely even give him sub minutes when he had no other CMs available.
 
Isotope said:
It’s staggeringly obvious that Carrick just a little sort of telling Ugarte to feck off, the way he’s been using Ugarte last season. And now he’s injured also and can’t be part of the squad.
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Zumbi said:
I don’t think he comes into the thinking at all - last season Carrick would barely even give him sub minutes when he had no other CMs available.
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Never said we weren't gonna get rid but we're clearly not now and I think Ugarte's wages come into the thinking when it comes to signing another midfielder.

We probably won't be able to sell him next summer either which makes even more sense to sign a experienced guy on loan or a short term contract.
 
Olecurls99 said:
Never said we weren't gonna get rid but we're clearly not now and I think Ugarte's wages come into the thinking when it comes to signing another midfielder.

We probably won't be able to sell him next summer either which makes even more sense to sign a experienced guy on loan or a short term contract.
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His wages are being covered by FIFA as he was injured playing at the World Cup.
.
 
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Dominos said:
I think we'd find two players per position is completely standard, it's just maybe the 4th option sometimes can be under the radar who don't expect to play too much.

Arsenal have Rice, Bruno G, MLS, Zubimendi, Merino going in this season.
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With the Bruno deal, it really does make some sense for us to sign MLS and Arsenal get a bunch of cash they will at some point need to 2.5-3X multiply (with wages) to spend on an actually world class attacker on the left or at #9 (unless someone other than Saka gets to that level) and we get MLS to be our 4th CM and/or LB of the future and maybe the present if he can beat out Shaw.
 
Zumbi said:
I don’t think he comes into the thinking at all - last season Carrick would barely even give him sub minutes when he had no other CMs available.
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Yeah, if he rated him enough to be our 4th CM I think he would have been coming into games with 20-30 go, considering Casemiro's age and us being ahead in most games under Carrick. Instead he was coming on for 1 minute, 4 minutes and 9 minute appearances.
 
Olecurls99 said:
Never said we weren't gonna get rid but we're clearly not now and I think Ugarte's wages come into the thinking when it comes to signing another midfielder.
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Us not having to pay most of his wages is as good as it get from a financial perspective. We weren't ever going to get much fee for him. So that excuse doesn't hold up
 
I feel like we're waiting now. One final half decent signing right at the end to make sure the fans feel like something was happening, so the green and yellow gear doesn't come out and Glazeos save themselves a load of money, hoping that we'll manage top 4 with what they've given us.

I know people think that's unrealistic but look at the Glazers and tell me you don't think that's how they think?
 
I actually think he has the makings of being a very good coach, but they're not giving him a proper chance.
 
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