Michael Carrick has fixed a lot of Man Utd’s shortcomings, but even a perceived weakness is actually their major strength.
The Champions League music can almost be heard at Old Trafford, and it’s all down to Michael Carrick powering a remarkable turnaround at Man Utd.
He has done so by platforming players correctly in their natural positions and setting up a structure within which they can thrive.
In the process, he has even turned one of the club’s perceived weaknesses into the club’s strength.
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Michael Carrick’s Man Utd score by committee
Man Utd have scored the third-highest number of league goals this season, netting 58 times in 33 games at the time of writing (before the Brentford game).
However, those goals have come due to an interesting wrinkle not shared by any other team in the top six that could be perceived as a weakness.
That is because, despite scoring 58 goals, none of the players in the Man Utd squad has touched double figures for league goals.
Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko are the closest at nine, while it’s a three-way tie at eight among Bruno Fernandes, Casemiro, and Matheus Cunha.
Beyond them, Mason Mount and Patrick Dorgu are at three, and both have missed large chunks of the season.
Clearly, United believe in scoring by committee, and despite the fact that there’s no clear leading goalscorer, Carrick believes that it’s actually a good thing.
He said: “There are different ways to look at it sometimes. To have one scoring an awful lot of goals certainly can help in some ways, but then not relying on or expecting one player to just produce the goals, I think being able to share is a good thing for us.
“Everyone’s capable of doing it and chipping in at some point. Someone hits a bit of form and a purple patch and has big moments. It comes around a little bit.
“I think we got good flexibility within the team for that, whether that’s set-plays, transitions, in and around the box, we feel that we’ve got a good mix.”
Man Utd will need more next season
As Carrick says, it’s a good thing that United aren’t completely reliant on one player to score the bulk of their goals, but the script must flip next season.
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It doesn’t mean that the scoring by committee should stop, but this trait should have an addition of one player who also leads the way.
Someone like Sesko or Mbeumo needs to give United a 20-goal season, while the other around him flirt with double figures.
With four competitions next season, rotation will be plenty, giving United a chance to continue their committee scoring, but if nobody leads the way, it would mean that Utd just aren’t scoring enough.
That can’t be the case, so this season actually serves as a good appetiser for the players already at the club, who need to find another level.
The good news is that with so many players on nine and eight goals, the potential for even one of them to break out and become clinical is high.
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