Michael Carrick has a few headaches to solve after Man Utd’s draw against Everton, but he’s given one to one of his players with his Leny Yoro decision.
When accounting for where things went wrong against Everton, nobody would put Leny Yoro at the top of the list of culprits.
The Frenchman came off the bench again, and the move which led to either goal didn’t come down his side, which means it was a job well done.
The same can’t be said for his teammate, who has been sent a warning by Michael Carrick using Yoro.
Photo by Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
It was written off as an experiment in pre-season when Carrick fielded Leny Yoro at right-back for multiple games.
Even Yoro said at the time that he was just keeping the place warm for Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui, who were enjoying extended breaks due to the World Cup.
Yoro was restored to centre-back in the pre-season itself, lending credibility to the claim that it was always a stop-gap solution.
However, it has now been multiple games in a row where Yoro has come off the bench to take the right-back spot.
Doing this in competitive Premier League games only means one thing. Carrick sees Yoro as a genuine right-back option.
Yoro’s channel defending and athleticism make him a fit for that position, albeit his overlapping abilities leave a lot to be desired.
The issue, however, is not Yoro’s fit as a right-back. Rather, it is what this change means for his teammate.
The right-back position to start the season was Noussair Mazraoui’s to lose, as the Moroccan started the first game of the season.
He didn’t have a great time, and Dalot immediately proved to be an upgrade, a position he has since made his own.
In just three games, however, Mazraoui has gone from being first-choice to third-choice, coming on after Yoro against Everton to play on the left.
Mazraoui has struggled for a while now to impress under Carrick, with United’s record when he doesn’t start much better than when he does.
Football is a team game so it would be unfair to put that all on him, but the reality is hard to ignore.
Carrick seems to have sensed the same, which is why Yoro has jumped ahead of him in the pecking order for a position that doesn’t even come naturally to him.
It’s a clear warning to Mazraoui.
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