Twelve wins in seventeen
Michael Carrick took over a Manchester United side sitting seventh in January. He won 12 of his 17 league games and had Champions League qualification wrapped up with three matches to spare. From the day he was appointed to the final whistle of the season, no club in England collected more points.
The gap to his predecessor is stark. Ruben Amorim averaged 1.23 points per Premier League game across 13 and a half months in charge. Carrick averaged 2.29. He scrapped the back three, handed Kobbie Mainoo the minutes Amorim never trusted him with, and finished third. The club rewarded him with a two-year deal.
Context tempers it. United had only the league to think about. Liverpool underperformed, Chelsea finished 10th, Tottenham spent the spring in a relegation fight. Carrick now has to hold that level while juggling four competitions.
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Forty games, then forty-eight
United played 40 matches in all competitions last season, their fewest in 111 years. They went out of both domestic cups at the first attempt and had no European football to fill the midweeks. This season they are guaranteed a minimum of 48, and that number climbs with every round they survive.
The squad has not grown to match. United spent over 200 million pounds last summer and roughly 85 million this one. Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans arrived, Casemiro left, and Manuel Ugarte will miss most of the season through injury. That leaves the midfield roughly where it stood 12 months ago. Mason Mount was floated as a third option in there before a knock against Paris Saint-Germain ruled him out of the Leeds and AC Milan friendlies.
Left-back looks thinner still. Luke Shaw played all 38 league games last season, the first time he has passed 32 in a United shirt, and his contract expires next summer. Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui have covered there without convincing, and Patrick Dorgu is treated by the staff as a winger.
Rashford, transitions, teenagers
Marcus Rashford came off the bench against Milan on Saturday, his first United outing in 20 months, after Barcelona declined their purchase option. He averaged a goal or assist every 105 minutes in Spain last season, a rate only three teammates bettered. United took 22 shots from fast breaks after Carrick arrived, behind only Liverpool and Bournemouth, and scored four from them, more than any other side.
Transition defence moved the same way. United conceded seven fast-break goals across the season, joint most in the division, but only two of those came after the change of coach. Homegrown minutes jumped from 477 under Amorim to 1,581 under Carrick, most of it Mainoo. Shea Lacey, 19, and 15-year-old JJ Gabriel are the next names in that queue.
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