**How Carrick Can FIX Manchester United's BIGGEST Defensive Problem! — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/carrick-fix-manchester-united-defensive-problem/

AJAnalysis explores how Michael Carrick can fix Manchester United's defensive issues by improving pressing tactics and team compactness.

## Key Takeaways

- Manchester United's defensive issues stem from inconsistent pressing and poor team compactness.
- The team must decide whether to press the ball aggressively or control space to reduce gaps.
- Improving communication and tactical clarity is essential for defensive stability.
- Current squad limitations mean short-term tactical adjustments are necessary before transfers can help.
- Michael Carrick's coaching approach will be critical in establishing a clear defensive identity.

## What the video covers

- Manchester United have started the season poorly with only four points from nine.
- The team concedes too many high-quality chances despite a moderate expected goals against (xG).
- 71% of shots faced come from inside the penalty area, indicating defensive vulnerability.
- The defensive problem begins with the high press and lack of a unified pressing strategy.
- United ranks 10th in the league for high turnovers in the final third, which is mediocre.
- There is confusion between pressing the ball and pressing the space, causing large gaps on the pitch.
- Lack of compactness both vertically and horizontally leads to defensive weaknesses.
- Certain players, especially in defense, struggle to manage large spaces effectively.
- Carrick and coaching staff need to clarify pressing intent and improve team defensive cohesion.
- Short-term fixes may be needed until longer-term tactical identity and personnel solutions are possible.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Poor Start to the Season and Defensive Concerns
2. 01:01 Analyzing Expected Goals and Shot Quality Against
3. 02:14 The Importance of Team Defending and Pressing
4. 03:18 Different Pressing Styles and Their Impact
5. 04:23 Confusion in Pressing and Resulting Defensive Gaps
6. 05:26 Lack of Defensive Compactness and Player Roles
7. 06:23 Challenges with Defensive Space and Player Trust
8. 07:35 Potential Solutions and Tactical Adjustments
9. 09:52 Long-Term vs Short-Term Defensive Strategies

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is Manchester United's biggest defensive problem according to the video?

The biggest defensive problem is the lack of team compactness and confusion between pressing the ball and pressing the space, leading to large gaps and easy chances for opponents.

How does the video suggest Michael Carrick can improve Manchester United's defense?

Carrick should clarify the team's pressing strategy, ensuring all players have a unified approach to pressing either the ball or space, and improve communication to maintain defensive compactness.

Why is Manchester United conceding high-quality chances despite not facing many shots?

Because a high percentage of shots conceded come from inside the penalty area, meaning the opposition is getting good scoring opportunities due to defensive lapses and large spaces.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Manchester United have made a poor start to the new season. Four points from a possible nine, considering the teams we've played, just isn't good enough.

00:09

Speaker A

But it's far too early in the season to start crashing out and panicking. Instead, it's time to identify the problem and figure out a solution. Now, as always, we are going to turn towards the tactical board to find the problems

00:20

Speaker A

and the solutions to everything that United are going through at the moment. But before we do that, I want to look at some quick statistics from the start of our season. Now, it's worth remembering we are only now approaching

00:31

Speaker A

game week four. So, it's still very early. The sample size is still incredibly small. However, only four teams have conceded more goals than Manchester United. And when you consider the opposition that we've faced so far, they are teams that you would class as

00:44

Speaker A

weaker sides, that is a little bit concerning. The fact that we are conceding so many goals already.

00:49

Speaker A

However, if you go a little bit deeper into the stats, things don't look so concerning. In terms of the expected goals that we've conceded so far, it's okay. It's not great. It's not amazing. But it's also not tragic. So,

01:01

Speaker A

we have to dive a little bit deeper and look at the XG that we are conceding per shot that we face. And that is where we are a little bit higher than we would want to be. So, what that means is that

01:12

Speaker A

United aren't necessarily giving up hundreds of opportunities in every single game, but in every single game, we are giving away two or three good opportunities for the opposition. And we probably have suffered a little bit at the start of the season with some

01:25

Speaker A

misfortune, the opposition pulling off some incredible finishes in the opening weeks of the season. But regardless, it is too easy for the opposition to get good chances in the Manchester United end. Now, some of you will argue the

01:37

Speaker A

goal like from Maitland-Niles isn't really something that we can help. Perhaps we are just getting unfortunate with conceding absolute bangers. But that isn't really true. Seventy-one percent of the shots that we have faced so far this season have come within our penalty area. If

01:51

Speaker A

you compare that to Arsenal, you can see that they are faring much better. So yes, there probably is a little bit of misfortune in there, some really good finishing that we can't always account for, but there are definitely defensive

02:01

Speaker A

problems that we need to address. So, let's start off with the high press because ultimately that is where defending starts. I think for Michael Carrick, what he wants to do is make sure that United play as a team.

02:14

Speaker A

Ultimately, that's what every manager wants to do. So, they want the team to attack together, but also to defend together. So, defending isn't just about the job of the center-backs and the goalkeeper, but it's also the job of

02:24

Speaker A

your striker, your left winger, your right winger, your number 10. This is a team effort. And Manchester United so far this season are 10th in the league for the high turnovers in the final third.

02:34

Speaker A

So, we are 10th for the number of times that we have won the ball back high up the pitch, which is okay, but it's not an amazing number. You know, it doesn't rank us right near the top end of the

02:44

Speaker A

league where we would perhaps want to be. And I think what Michael Carrick and his coaching staff need to do is really sit down and question what is the intent.

02:54

Speaker A

What is the intent behind the United high press? Because you can press in different ways. You can be one of the best high-pressing sides anywhere in Europe, but actually very rarely win the ball high if the intent isn't to

03:08

Speaker A

win the ball high. So, what you can do is go for a really high press, be really aggressive, but actually rather than trying to constantly win the ball back, you're actually just trying to force the player on the ball into a quick decision

03:18

Speaker A

where he's going to send the ball on. So, some teams, for example, let's say the opposition play out. Some teams want to play at 100 miles an hour off the ball. They want to sprint into every tackle, and the plan is very much we are

03:29

Speaker A

going to nick the ball high. The teams that do that will rank high for the turnovers. But you could also press aggressively, you can press high, and actually just restrict options for the player on the ball. And I think this is

03:40

Speaker A

something that United need to figure out with the identity of the team. At times at the moment, it feels like we are mixed. At times it feels like we're going after the ball, or one or two players might be going after the ball,

03:51

Speaker A

but actually the next guys are focusing on cutting out passing lanes. When you've got that split in your team, when you've got different ideas in the players' heads, it's not going to work.

04:01

Speaker A

And the second a couple jump, but a couple mark the space, you're going to leave yourself a little bit open. So, what Carrick and Steve Holland in particular really need to do is figure out, are we pressing the ball or are we

04:12

Speaker A

pressing the space? That is something that just has to be established over the next few weeks because currently we've got players that are sort of working on mixed signals. There's mixed messages in this United team. Some look like they're

04:23

Speaker A

going for the ball, some look like they're going for the space, and that means that the gaps between our players just become absolutely massive. And sort of defending football rule 101 is you don't want the pitch to be big, but

04:36

Speaker A

I would say currently United are making the pitch way too big because the messages seem confused.

04:42

Speaker A

Now, this leads to a lack of compactness for Manchester United both vertically but also horizontally. So, our players are a little bit confused in the pressing role at times, and we've all seen that, moments where our players are

04:54

Speaker A

sort of pointing at each other. No one's quite sure where they're meant to be, and that is a coaching issue. That is the coaches not getting the messages across. And this leads to a lack of compactness, it leads to spaces that

05:03

Speaker A

quite simply are too big in this Manchester United team. And those spaces go from front to back but also from side to side, the left side of the pitch to the right side of the pitch. The gaps for the United players to cover are

05:14

Speaker A

too big. And when you look at the Manchester United squad, and I say, "How many of these guys are experts, specialists at defending large spaces?" You know, you can let me know in the comments down below.

05:26

Speaker A

Those comments are going to be rather brief because there aren't many players that specialize in the big spaces. And again, naturally defensively what you want to do is you want to be compact, you want your teammate to be close to

05:35

Speaker A

you. So, if you are, for example, the left side of central midfielder, you want your left winger tucked in with you. That's what you really want. And if you are a center back, you want your full back nearby. And if you're a

05:44

Speaker A

central midfielder, you want your striker just in front. You want to be compact, you want to be really, really tight, but United are the complete opposite. We are so, so open, and that is a vertical issue initially for me. I

05:55

Speaker A

think Manchester United have forwards that are pressing high, and we've got aggressive forwards, haven't we? We've got gambling forwards, forwards who have a mindset of I want to score a goal. So, it often feels like they want to go and

06:05

Speaker A

press the man, they want to go and press the ball. Then we often see the midfield behind them, who can be outnumbered in the middle of the park, and their thought is often, I want to press the space, because we're two versus three,

06:15

Speaker A

we can't go man for man, so suddenly now we need to look after the space. And this is where you start to see the big gaps form. And then you've got the back four.

06:23

Speaker A

And I just feel as though, particularly at center back, but arguably at left back as well, we've got a defensive unit where we don't trust them with the big spaces. So, what these guys tend to do, especially Harry Maguire, he's always

06:34

Speaker A

had it sort of in the back of...

06:42

Speaker A

distances between you and your teammate now suddenly become much bigger. And again, if we're talking about being compact as a defensive unit, this is something that United are struggling to do. So, vertically the spaces are far too big. There is simply too much space

06:54

Speaker A

for United to try and cover, and you know, someone like Carlos Bale will help with this with his mobility in the middle of the park, but he's not going to fix it, because these spaces are too big. This is a coaching issue. Carrick

07:05

Speaker A

and his coaches are not getting this right. Now, like I said earlier, this is also an issue horizontally across the pitch. So, vertically the the gap from our center backs to our strikers is far too big. There's too much space to play

07:17

Speaker A

around Manchester United here, but this also has an impact in the wider zones as well, which may not initially appear to be quite as dangerous and quite as threatening to United, but actually in the long term, in the long run, it's

07:30

Speaker A

just as big a problem, because it's easy territory for the opposition to gain up the pitch. You see, what United like to do is push the two forwards high, Rashford and Mbeumo. If you think about their personalities, they're both quite

07:41

Speaker A

hard working, and certainly have been at the start of the season, which has been great to see, but they're not defensively minded players, are they?

07:47

Speaker A

Their instinct isn't to defend. And what we do is we push them forward, but we don't back them up. We really, really struggle to back them up. And often we find ourselves in a bit of a hybrid role

07:57

Speaker A

where we don't want to leave Harry Maguire isolated, so Dalot will tuck in with Maguire, but also needs to be ready to jump to this winger, and but also needs to be ready to jump to this full back. And then you'll have Bruno who is

08:08

Speaker A

sometimes inside, so when Bruno needs to be ready for this full back, but also ready for this center back. And what we end up with now, as we look through this, is we end up with a few too many

08:17

Speaker A

players that sort of playing these defensive hybrid sort of roles in the team. And I just don't think United want to be doing this too regularly. I don't think it's something that we want, because it makes the jumps very

08:28

Speaker A

difficult. And then for Harry Maguire, he's looking at this space here and going, "Can I really get there?" "Can I really get there?" And if he doesn't think he's going to get there, he's not going to go. But then

08:37

Speaker A

Manchester United really are disconnected, because the ball can eventually be worked into this space, and there's a serious problem. So, because of these almost hybrid roles, the gaps between our winger and our full back are simply too big at this moment

08:49

Speaker A

in time. Now, this is something that Carrick will be able to fix, and I'll look at solutions in just a moment, but I think this is one of our biggest issues. The These gaps are too big. It doesn't matter what midfielders you

08:59

Speaker A

play, they're going to struggle to get out there, and it doesn't matter what wingers you play, they're going to struggle to get back. There's a lack of trust, a lack of faith in the United back four, which is what I think is

09:10

Speaker A

causing a lot of the problems, because we become disconnected. Once again, that is the word, disconnected. We're not a tight, compact unit. We've got forwards that are going, we've got defenders that are staying, and midfielders that are stuck in the middle, and now, rather

09:22

Speaker A

than being a tight defensive team, we are creating big spaces for ourselves to try and deal with. And quite simply, that is the last thing that you want as a defense. So, fundamentally, United are getting it horribly wrong.

09:35

Speaker A

Now, the question is, how do you fix this? Because the transfer window is now over. We can't go and get ourselves a new center-back. We can't get a new fullback. We can't get a better pressing right winger. However, we could still

09:46

Speaker A

make personnel changes if we wanted to. For example, you could take Marcus Rashford out the team. You could put Patrick Dorgu in, and you're probably going to get a better defensive performance from him. However, Rashford is probably our most threatening player

09:58

Speaker A

going forward at this moment in time. So, that's not really a change that I'd be comfortable with. Something we could do in a few weeks when Amad returns from his injury issues is bring him into the team. We know that on the right wing, he

10:08

Speaker A

is a better defensive player than what Brian Brobbey is. But again, I don't know if it solves the problem tactically. I don't know if it solves the tactical issue that we've got. It might give us an individual that is

10:18

Speaker A

better at masking the weaknesses, but I think the underlying weaknesses would still be there. It's the same in midfield. We could take Youri Tielemans out and put Carlos Baleba in, and we know that Baleba is immense at covering

10:28

Speaker A

space, and he would certainly improve us. But should we be having to do that?

10:32

Speaker A

We can take Harry Maguire out and put Lenny Yoro into the team. But again, I don't know if this is solving the problem at source, or whether it's just masking some of the weaknesses at the end with more mobile players. For me, I

10:45

Speaker A

think what we're personally Sorry, I think what we're probably going to see is a slight change in tactical approach from Michael Carrick. And this is one which isn't going to sit too easy with me.

10:57

Speaker A

Uh but I think it's where we're at at this moment in time, especially now we've had a slightly poor start to the season. A little bit of pressure piles on. A little bit of pressure to try and get some results. And starting with

11:08

Speaker A

Manchester City in the league this weekend, you know, that's a difficult one to to go into and go, "Okay, we're going to start building some rhythm." I think what we're likely to see from United is almost abandoning a little bit the high

11:20

Speaker A

press. So, rather than half pressing, I think we'll avoid pressing. Which does mean that teams are going to have possession against us, which I think goes against what Michael Carrick wants us to be like. Uh but at the moment where it is a results-based

11:33

Speaker A

business, I think we're going to see a more compact United team. I think the wingers will be a bit more attached to the two central midfielders as opposed to a front four. And I think what United will do is try and set more traps. I

11:44

Speaker A

think we will become a side that presses the space more than presses the ball because I don't know that our players are always intelligent enough to make the jumps on where to press the ball.

11:54

Speaker A

So, giving them a space, giving them a zone that they are tasked with marking might be a slightly easier job for them.

12:01

Speaker A

Now, the effect of that is that United will have less possession because the opposition will be able to play out from the back more frequently. They will be able to get more touches on the ball.

12:09

Speaker A

But, I still think this is better than pressing and getting it wrong because when you really commit to the high press, your players go but they don't go properly, you know, you're suddenly two players out of the game. Your front two

12:20

Speaker A

gets bypassed and that's happened a lot already this season. We're only three games in, but there have been countless moments where the front two have been so easily beaten, sometimes even the front four. And, you know, for these six at

12:31

Speaker A

the back now who aren't blessed with pace and one versus one defensive ability, it really does leave us with a problem. So, I think what we're going to see from Carrick is probably eventually a more compact approach and Manchester

12:43

Speaker A

City is an easy game to do that for Michael Carrick. As a manager of such a big club, you don't really want to take this negative step backwards.

12:52

Speaker A

But, if there is a team where you can do it, it's against City who have been one of the best teams in the land for the past 10 years. So, you can almost get away with a slightly more conservative

13:00

Speaker A

approach, a slightly more compact, tighter approach. And then if you get a result in that game, you feel that you can take that approach into other matches. And I think in the short term, that might be the better idea for us. I

13:12

Speaker A

think at the moment we lack the coaching required to go and press truly as a very good pressing outfit. I also think we lack some of the players across the back four. I don't think there's the personalities that we need. So, I think

13:25

Speaker A

the short-term solution is going to be more of a high block as opposed to a high press.

13:31

Speaker A

Now, to be honest, I'm not completely happy with that as a solution. I personally think United are one of the biggest teams in the world, the biggest team in England, and therefore I think we should be asserting ourselves in

13:41

Speaker A

every match, putting the opposition under as much pressure as possible, forcing them into into mistakes, winning the ball high, and scoring goals. That's what United should be in my opinion.

13:51

Speaker A

But, I don't think we can be that right now. Again, I think that the coaching is a little bit behind. And rather than continuing to to try this high press that doesn't work, you know, to me that seems like insanity. So, in the

14:02

Speaker A

short-term, we might have to accept that United aren't going to be able to press quite as high, but hopefully the effect is that we will become a more solid side together that is able to keep things a little bit tighter at the back in the

14:15

Speaker A

way that we did the second half of last season. Of course, the question's going to come up again in the future, though, because eventually we do want to be a side that asserts ourselves much more. I think it's clear that's what Michael

14:25

Speaker A

Carrick wants. The question is, how do we eventually sort of bridge that gap? That's something that we're going to have to figure out. I'm a little bit surprised United didn't move or make a move for a new coach to come into the

14:36

Speaker A

club this summer. Not a new manager, but a new coach, someone who is a bit more of a defensive expert on that side of the game. We haven't done that. We didn't sign any defensive-minded players for the team, no one for the back four.

14:48

Speaker A

So, for now, I think it might be another spell where United have to make do a little bit and find some shorter-term solutions before we are eventually able to apply a longer-term idea. But, those are just my thoughts, my opinions. I

15:01

Speaker A

really want to hear from you guys in the comments down below because I think our in possession game is strong. I think it's really good. I think we're exciting, but I think we shoot ourselves in the foot because defensively we're so poor.

15:11

Speaker A

You know, we have to go and score three goals away from home just to win a football match, and that's not reasonable. That's not sustainable. You can't do that over the course of the season. United need to be able to have

15:20

Speaker A

matches where we score one or or two, and that's enough for a win. We need to get ourselves to a place where we can do that. And to do that, we have to be better defensively. I've pointed out

15:30

Speaker A

some of the defensive problems today. I've also pointed out some potential solutions, but I would love to hear what you guys think. What is the biggest defensive problem? What do you think is the problem? And how would you, if you

15:41

Speaker A

were manager, go about solving it? Let me know what you think down below. But apart from that, we are now finished for today. So, thank you very much for watching this video. I hope you have enjoyed it. And as always, I'll see you

15:52

Speaker A

in the next one.

Topics: Manchester United Michael Carrick defensive problems high press team compactness pressing tactics expected goals football analysis Premier League AJAnalysis


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