Manchester United have been punching beneath their weight for some time. Ruben Amorim might not have been the most disappointing head coach appointment, just the man in the plush racing seat when the music stopped on the Red Devils’ aura.
Amorim was in the Man United job altogether too long but ultimately left them in a salvageable position last season. After a couple of matches under caretaker head coach Darren Fletcher, the club turned again to former midfielder Michael Carrick.
The brief for the interim head coach was clear enough: Get results with a team that previously couldn’t even count as high as the sum of its parts, never mind perform beyond them.
How it all went right for Michael Carrick at Manchester United
Carrick’s interim spell was a success. Finishing third in the Premier League and returning to the Champions League after a season that totalled a meagre 40 matches was an admirable achievement, albeit the influence of Bruno Fernandes simply cannot be ignored.
The outer-layer assumption is that Carrick was able to unlock United’s capabilities by engendering a sense of simplicity and freedom, most notably by doing away with a formation Amorim was smitten with but which plainly wasn’t working.
There’s some merit to that simplistic analysis.
Very good players can perform or not on their own but they can also be held back by their environment and, for very many reasons that don’t all apply in Amorim’s case, by a head coach that doesn’t suit, motivate or maximise them.
Relieving that internal pressure on a presentable playing staff by simplifying things and switching to a back four might sound obvious but isn’t just basic stuff that any incoming gaffer could have translated into results.
Carrick didn’t stroll back into Carrington in January, tell his players that back threes are for dorks and immediately defeat Manchester City by just going out there and enjoying themselves. It was an actively smart move on his part to see what he had and understand how to unleash it.
It earned United the desired outcome and got him the job on a permanent basis. With third place and a Champions League spot in the bag, he was the obvious choice.
The audition is over and it’s time to play the part
What happens now is for real and it’s Carrick’s to own. ‘Interim’ is gone. There’s no bounce, no release from loathed methods of old. The only yardstick is the same one against which all United managers are evaluated and that’s an entirely different challenge.
The power of ‘getting it’ typically doesn’t carry from one season to the next. There’s a big difference between getting it and doing it. Doing it is now the task at hand.
There are reasons to be optimistic. Carrick himself is one of them; it would be unreasonable to discount the very tangible success of last season, and it bodes well.
After all, the former United midfielder hasn’t betrayed any reason to doubt him. His team’s recovery in the second half of 2025-26 amounted to just two losses and three draws in 17 matches and included wins over City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Liverpool, all of whom finished in the top five with them.
United have brought in some top-quality players in the transfer windows both this summer and last.
Senne Lammens, Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko are all major contributors, and the same will be expected of Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos even if supporters hope for more additions. Even prodigal son Marcus Rashford could be in line to play his part.
For Carrick, the bar is high. Qualifying for the Champions League is the baseline for United, not a target, and even that would be deemed by some supporters as falling short of expectations.
The likes of United, Liverpool and Villa can also expect to face more significant opposition from big-spending Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, neither of whom can afford another season like the last and are doing everything in their power to make sure it doesn’t happen.
We’ll find out in the early part of 2026-27 whether United are set up for success. This time last year, with plenty of money spent in the summer but holes in the team and a head coach who steadfastly stuck with methods that seemed to do more damage than just not working, they were doomed to fail
Carrick is the face of what United supporters hope will be a different experience, with players performing to their abilities and operating as a team capable of re-planting the United flag.
His first match of the new season takes United to promoted Hull City. The second is at home against Ipswich Town. The expectation will be that they win both. It’s a familiar standard that Carrick is going to have to embrace.
