Carrick sets Man Utd up to become best-ever Premier League champions after five-word Neville summary | OneFootball

If Manchester United are to achieve their target of winning the Premier League by 2028 then Michael Carrick’s Red Devils are set to be hailed as the greatest-ever champions. They’re so much fun.

There is little doubt that Carrick’s permanent appointment at Manchester United would be a significant boon for admirers of entertaining football and serves a similarly beneficial purpose to the Premier League’s high-speed brand.

But as evidenced by not irregular groans from the Old Trafford crowd and a five-word Gary Neville summary of a mad minute in the 3-2 win over Nottingham Forest which also effectively epitomised the 16-game run which has persuaded Sir Jim Ratcliffe to hand Carrick the reins, the Red Devils are less ‘attack, attack, attack’ and more ‘defend, attack, defend, attack’ etc.

Luke Shaw had already put United ahead with a sweetly struck strike following some distinctly average Nottingham Forest defending. Bruno Fernandes was predictably at the heart of it, first bringing down a fairly hopeful ball forward and then delivering the cross which Neco Williams made a mess of clearing.

The game then fell into a rhythm of Forest trying to break down a low block and United hitting them on the counter-attack, as has been the way under Carrick.

“Massive chances at both ends,” Neville said after Senne Lammens denied Morgan Gibbs-White at one end as United were sliced open, before some lovely one-touch passing from the hosts set Matheus Cunha away before he slipped Bryan Mbeumo through for the first of several very good opportunities he spurned.

It’s a style of football that you would have to say Carrick has introduced to good effect based on the outstanding results of his interim reign, but one that raises questions over United’s ability to maintain this level next season.

Top teams tend to enjoy far more control in games and while there’s more than one way to skin a cat, a key reason for possession being a focus for those elite sides is to ensure they retain consistent energy levels in packed football schedules.

Carrick’s United haven’t had fitness concerns this season. No European or cup football has meant they can play what has been an undeniably thrilling but exhausting helter-skelter brand.

Morato drew Forest level soon after the break, nodding in Elliot Anderson’s stunning delivery after the Forest midfielder bullied Amad Diallo all too easily after a short corner, before one of the most laughable refereeing decisions in a veritable comedy festival of officiating nonsense this season put United back in front.

Mbeumo was enduring a nightmare, blazing over the bar twice in a bid to break his longest goalscoring drought in close to three years, much to the disappointment of record-chasing Bruno Fernandes, who after one of the horrible snatched finishes threw himself to the ground and beat the turf in frustration. Mbeumo then played a literal hand in Matheus Cunha’s goal to retake the lead.

No-one on the planet bar referee Michal Salisbury believes the goal should have stood after Mbeumo as good as caught the ball before Cunha slotted neatly into the corner. Neville described it as “an absolute shocker in every single way” after Salisbury ignored the VAR advice to rule the goal out having watched Mbeumo control the ball by wedging it between his hip and arm on the pitch-side monitor.

Fernandes did draw level with Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne on 20 assists in a season as he crossed for Mbeumo, but the United skipper really should have clinched that record and then some as he gave up on defending for the last 30 minutes and consistently fed the profligate forwards ahead of him to miss chance after chance.

This game surely wouldn’t have turned into quite such an end-to-end madness had there been anything riding on it and the United fans were evidently enjoying themselves, even though Gibbs-White’s glorious one-touch finish from another Anderson cross put the result in doubt before further chances for the visitors to earn a point.

But United were enjoying the better of it and their attacking talent will win out on plenty of occasions next season as was the case here assuming Carrick sticks with this wonderfully exciting method.

There won’t be too many who believe it’s sustainable and neutrals should perhaps be more keen on a lack of evolution than Man Utd fans, though those Red Devils can can look forward to being hailed as the greatest-ever Premier League champions if they win it like this.