How Michael Carrick has changed Man United’s football: More passes, fewer crosses, lower pressing

When Ruben Amorim and Manchester United parted ways in acrimonious circumstances at the turn of the year, the prospect of Champions League qualification appeared remote, if not impossible.

United had won three of their past 11 games. Now, they have won seven of their past 10, and anything less than a place at European football’s top table next season would be a disappointment.

The turnaround in results has been the most important and eye-catching difference under Amorim’s successor until the end of the season, Michael Carrick, who has put himself firmly in the mix to become United’s next permanent manager.

It is not the only change, though, nor is the shift from Amorim’s much-debated 3-4-3 shape to a 4-2-3-1 that has restored many of United’s most impressive performers under Carrick to their natural roles.

Under Carrick, there have been subtle but significant shifts in how United play — tweaks that have proved successful.

His tenure has hit the 10-game mark, representing a small yet still meaningful sample size, so The Athletic has looked into the data underpinning Carrick’s his approach and the shift in style that has turned around United’s season.

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More passes, same speed

Picture Carrick the player and you see a metronomic midfielder playing safe, secure passes to lay the foundations for sustained spells of possession.

As a coach, his tactical approach is a little more complex, but the influence of his pass-first playing style can be seen in the underlying numbers from his first 10 games in charge.

Under Carrick, spells of possession have been longer and more intricate. United are stringing together more passes of 10 sequences or more at a higher frequency (12.2 under Carrick, up from 9.7 under Amorim).

More of the ball usually involves a trade-off. Longer possessions are broadly, if not always, aligned with a slower tempo. Pep Guardiola’s most successful Manchester City sides provide the best example of that, if an extreme one.

Interestingly, though, the data suggests United are playing at almost the same speed as they were previously under Amorim.

Amorim unmistakably moved to a faster, more direct style of play at the start of the season, and that tempo has barely dipped under Carrick, going from 1.84 metres per second to 1.83 m/s.

Even more encouragingly, a greater share of those passes have been in the opponent’s half. In the final third, United have gone from completing 77.2 passes per game under Amorim to 90.2 under Carrick.

Fast yet intricate football is a difficult balance to strike, requiring players with the technical ability to pull it off, but it is the happy ideal most supporters want to see from a United side. Carrick has moved this side closer to achieving that.

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Playing more centrally, creating from the right

Carrick’s arrival has seen United place slightly more emphasis on playing centrally than under Amorim, with more focus on players getting closer together in the middle of the pitch to combine quickly.

This change is only subtly represented in the data, but the map of touches in the attacking half below shows how Carrick’s side are playing in the half-spaces more often than Amorim’s.

There is still a lot of play directed down the wings, though, and United have carried the most threat when playing down the right.

Under Carrick, Luke Shaw has regularly stepped inside to form a back three alongside the centre-halves, while the right-back — typically Diogo Dalot — pushes further up to combine with Amad and overload opponents on that side.

This was something often seen at Carrick’s Middlesbrough, especially during his first year, when left-back Ryan Giles would provide an attacking outlet high and wide, while right-back Tommy Smith tucked in.

As a result, the proportion of United’s chances created from the right has jumped up sharply, from around a roughly even split under Amorim to a 48 per cent right-sided bias under Carrick.

That is also reflected in how almost two in every three of United’s crosses under Carrick have been played from the right-hand side.

Overall, though, United are crossing less under Carrick. His appointment has seen a drop in the number of crosses attempted, falling from 17.1 per game under Amorim to 13.8.

Perhaps that is to be expected given that Bryan Mbeumo has largely been Carrick’s centre-forward of choice, despite the form of the 6ft 5in (195cm) Benjamin Sesko. That may also explain why Senne Lammens’ long kicking, a key component of United’s style in the late Amorim era, has been dialled down, too.

Pressing from a compact mid-block

There have been changes out of possession as well as in possession.

United’s average starting distance when pressing has fallen from 43.1m to 41.8m. That raw figure does not sound like much of a difference, but the shift is a lot starker when compared with the rest of the league.

Amorim’s 43.1m would make United the fourth-highest press in the Premier League behind Arsenal, City and Brighton & Hove Albion across the whole season. Carrick’s 41.8m would be mid-table by comparison.

Carrick’s first win in the Manchester derby was an extreme example, but it set the tone. A narrow, disciplined 4-4-2 block denied City space to play through the lines, but the front two — Bruno Fernandes and Mbeumo — would jump and engage when the time was right.

The result of this approach is that despite starting from a lower and less risky base, United are pressing opponents just about as much as they were before. The 11.1 pressed sequences per game under Carrick is only a touch lower than the 11.3 under Amorim.

Less emphasis on set pieces

A greater focus on set pieces league-wide has been the dominant theme of the 2025-26 campaign, and United have been at the forefront of that change.

Only Arsenal have bettered United’s total of 18 goals from set plays. Five of those have come during Carrick’s spell in charge, with Fernandes’ deliveries for Casemiro proving particularly fruitful.

United’s set-piece threat has slightly dropped off on a per-game basis compared to Amorim’s time, though, and that is not surprising given Carrick’s side are attempting significantly fewer shots from set plays, down by almost a third.

The most notable difference is from throw-ins. United joined the long-throw party under Amorim through Dalot. United attempted 13 shots from throw-ins under Amorim. They are yet to attempt a single one under Carrick.

The change in the dugout has seen a return of the outswinging corner, though. Fernandes and Mbeumo were taking corners from the left and right respectively before, very rarely deviating, but Fernandes has returned to right-sided duties at times too under Carrick, adding a little more variation.

How well is it all working?

All of the above can be broadly classified as deliberate, stylistic changes that Carrick and his coaching staff have implemented and, to an extent, control.

Execution is what matters, though, and results are what will ultimately strengthen or weaken Carrick’s case to take the job permanently. After seven wins and only one defeat from his 10 games in charge, he has done as well as could be realistically expected on that front.

The results are supported by some fundamental improvements under the hood, especially defensively.

United have kept as many clean sheets in Carrick’s 10 Premier League games as they did in Amorim’s 20 this season. They were conceding 2.2 big chances per game under Amorim, but that figure has dramatically fallen to 1.3 under Carrick.

United are hitting the target more often at the other end of the pitch, too. Shot accuracy has jumped from 45.4 per cent to 54.3 per cent, and more of those shots are being converted into goals, from a 10.3 per cent rate to a 13.8 per cent.

But is that sustainable? While shot conversion rates can swing up and down, expected goals are generally regarded as more predictive of future performance than any other statistical measure.

United’s defensive improvement under Carrick is reflected in non-penalty xG conceded dropping to 0.9 per game since his arrival, compared to 1.3 previously. Amorim made up for that in attack, creating 1.6 non-penalty xG per game. That has dropped to 1.3 under Carrick.

This trade-off has seen United’s non-penalty xG difference per game rise to 0.42 under Carrick, compared to 0.33 under Amorim.

Ideally, Carrick would squeeze a little more out of his attack between now and the end of the season to widen that gap. The early signs are that his tweaks have not only supercharged United’s results, but also improved underlying performances, too, only strengthening his case to succeed Amorim permanently.