Michael Carrick downplays “pressing” obsession and makes clear demand of Man Utd players

Michael Carrick has given his verdict on “pressing” amid widespread debate whether Manchester United’s lack of distance covered in games is contributing to poor results.

Manchester United were rightly scrutinised after losing 4-1 to Como in the Champions League on Wednesday night. It was a dire display that led to an explosive post-match interview with club captain Bruno Fernandes, who hit out at the tactics following instructions from the coaching staff.

Fernandes told TNT Sports: “We actually half-pressed man-to-man.” This prompted a blunt response from Carrick, who had every right to feel as though he was being thrown under the bus by his biggest star. The United head coach said: “We actually half-pressed man-to-man in the second half and then conceded a goal from that.”

These comments have boiled over into the pre-match chat before United face Bournemouth in the Premier League on Sunday. It has led to questions about whether the United players are running or pressing their opponents enough.

Michael Carrick downplays pressing talk

United were outrun by Como – 118.7km to 114.5km – during the week, despite the fact that the Italians were told by Cesc Fabregas to stop running in the final 10 minutes, before Joshua Zirkzee’s consolation goal in stoppage time.

When you dig deeper into the statistics, Youri Tielemans averages 6.9km per 90 minutes in the Champions League. Mason Mount and Diogo Dalot are both averaging 5.3km. All three of those players started against a Como side that worked a lot harder on the pitch and got the result they deserved on the night.

Although Fernandes’ running appeared to be questioned by Carrick after the defeat to Como, the Portugal international has covered a respectable amount of ground compared to his teammates. He has totalled 21.4km in three Champions League matches, averaging 8.1km per 90 minutes, but the overall team stats remain a concern going into the next game against Bournemouth.

Carrick was asked about his ‘running’ comments at Friday’s press conference, when he explained that there is so much more to winning football matches than pressing hard. He almost described it as a buzzword in the critical coverage of the club this season.

“I think you’ve got to be careful, I was just saying ‘not running.’ As I said, we’ve won a lot of games over a period of time,” Carrick told the reporters sat in the press room.

“And this pressing thing that suddenly everyone thinks about pressing. Pressing is one small part of football. There’s all sorts of different ways of what people are classed as a press, what actually is it, what you’re doing it for, is it to your strength, is it covering up all the spaces. It’s just thrown about as a bit of a word at the minute of pressing. You don’t necessarily need to press to win games of football. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.

“It’s just a thing that gets thrown about. So, we’ve got to be a bit careful with that. As I say, it’s not necessarily just running stats that define football games either. So, we’ve just got to get back to doing a lot of the things that we were doing last season. And for certain parts of the season and certain games, we’ve been okay. We need to get back to being at our best.”

It should be stressed that pressing is different from simply running. But Carrick must demand more energy from his players, especially against Bournemouth, who played with lots of intensity in their 3-0 win over AC Milan.