UNITED, UNITED, bottom of the league. Four leagues.
After another anaemic performance at Fulham, United are 20th for distance at high intensity, time spent at high intensity, sprints and time sprinting.
You know a United manager is approaching the end game when fitness becomes an issue.
Louis van Gaal dubbed Luke Shaw “not fit enough” weeks into his United reign. Jose Mourinho was dismissive of strength and conditioning training, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer vowed to make the players work harder, Erik ten Hag panned the sleeping, nutrition and recovery methods while Ruben Amorim demanded more intensity.
Under Michael Carrick, the day after a match has usually been a day off for United players. During Amorim’s and Ten Hag’s tenures, it was a recovery day.
So for the best part of four years, United players were accustomed to reporting at their Carrington training base as part of meticulous conditioning.
United were in the morning after the Brighton defeat last week as the schedule has enforced more post-match days where players report at Carrington. But with the extra workload, United now appear lethargic.
The delayed recovery revelation last season raised eyebrows. United won 12 from their first 17 games under Carrick and their fitness was not necessarily topical when they had one game per week.
Now United’s lack of running has contributed to their worst start to a season since 2014-15. Van Gaal was the manager back then and Carrick’s United are reminiscent of the Dutchman’s stultifying style.
Eight of United’s starting XI at Craven Cottage were at the extended World Cup in the summer, the endurance all the more gruelling for the distance between games in America. Belgium captain Youri Tielemans admitted his body “switched off” amid the schedule.
Man Utd ratings v Fulham
MANCHESTER UNITED salvaged a 1-1 draw as Fulham narrowly missed out on their first Premier League win of the season.
Matheus Cunha’s late deflected strike
Lisandro Martinez’s embarrassing own goal after Senne Lammens parried out Calvin Bassey‘s shot in the 63rd minute summed up a dreadful afternoon for the Red Devils.
Some had lighter workloads. Diogo Dalot played 64 minutes for Portugal and Senne Lammens had one catastrophic cameo. Marcus Rashford started twice during England’s seven-match run to the semi-finals. Kobbie Mainoo did not get a kick.
Since Carrick took umbrage at a journalist opining United were “passive” at Hull on the opening weekend, they have lived up to the billing. United are reactive, not proactive, and so is Carrick on the touchline.
Gary Neville, on co-commentary at Craven Cottage, likened United to “mannequins”. He claimed the first 15 minutes of the second half were the worst he has ever seen United play in 46 years.
That is complete claptrap. This century alone, United were worse at Maine Road in 2002, Norwich away 2005, Middlesbrough away 2005, the February 2008 derby, Olympiakos, Midtjylland, Everton away 2019, Watford away 2021, Liverpool away (take your pick), Brighton away 2022, Brentford away (take your pick), Crystal Palace away 2024, Tottenham home 2024, Grimsby away etc. etc. Neville played in some, was present at others, or watched remotely.
“Those players have got to work harder for Michael Carrick or it will cause him a massive issue,” Neville stressed.
It already is. The tone for a team’s work ethic is set by the head coach. And Carrick is sceptical of running stats.
At one of David Moyes’s first meetings with the squad as United manager in 2013, he told them, “I believe I can make you better. I know you won the league last year and I’ve obviously been watching you.
“I can make you run more.”
“Being fair to David, he was looking for a chink,” Carrick wrote in his 2018 book, Between the Lines, “like what needed improving and where we were weak, so that he could take us to another level.
“I just think what he said didn’t come across the right way. We’d just won the Premier League by 11 points, scored 11 goals more than anybody else, and won a lot of games as well, with scores like 3-0, 4-0.
“Our running stats were never that big anyway but we came from behind to claim 29 points that season so we must have been fairly fit, as well as committed.
“Our capacity for late goals under Sir Alex showed our endurance physically as well as mentally.
“David was right that in terms of ‘distance covered’ we weren’t one of the top sides in the Premier League.
“But if you look back over the years, all the good years, teams might come to Old Trafford and run a lot more than us, but quite often we ended up winning 2-0, 3-0 or 4-0.
“Under Sir Alex, we were very efficient with the ball.”
Carrick is trying to turn back the clock. Methods in 2013 under a genius of a manager are not going to cut it under one sacked by Middlesbrough last year.
Consider United’s midfield rebuild. Tielemans and Andrey Santos are technical-based midfielders and not renowned workhorses. Mainoo has an identical profile and his pace off the ball is occasionally questionable.
The trio are cut from the same cloth as Carrick the midfielder. Ferguson once said Carrick was “a shy boy who needed to be shaken at times”.
Tielemans when he admitted in an interview that United hadn’t been doing much running.
In this era, physicality and high intensity are non-negotiables. United are lacking in both areas.
We have been here before with United. The club hire a playing great who knows the club, they get a bounce and then they get found out.
Fulham outran United by nearly six kilometres. Brentford outran United by a staggering 14 kilometres when they hammered them 4-0 in August 2022.
Ten Hag set out his stall by ordering United players to run that distance the next day at Carrington. It was mid-August and temperatures in England were in the mid-30s.
“The players were ruined,” a Carrington source said. United were bottom then, too.
