Michael Carrick has been given a stay of execution by Manchester United after the club considered making a fourth managerial change in four years following their defeat by Bournemouth. Carrick, the club's eighth permanent boss since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013, came under major scrutiny after their poor start to the season continued with the 3-0 loss at Old Trafford. But what if United aren't an elite team underperforming - what if they are in fact a mid-table team whose results have made them look better than they are in the post-Ferguson era?
What if the managers aren't really to blame? Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player United's managers have paid the price for the club's struggles over the course of the last decade, but research for Between the Lines shows they have mostly overperformed in terms of points won in the Premier League relative to 'expected' points. United's total of 669 points is the fifth-highest in the Premier League in that timeframe.
But the Sky Sports expected points model, which factors the quality of a team's scoring chances for and against by game, puts United on 613, meaning they have taken 56 points more than expected. Since 2016, only Everton have outperformed their expected points by a bigger margin among Premier League clubs. This type of overperformance can be explained by a variety of factors, including clinical finishing, good goalkeeping, wasteful opponents and simply luck.
But it has been a theme of the last decade at United and raises questions of their true level. On a per-game basis, Carrick ranks as the biggest overperformer of their recent managers, averaging 1.85 points per game from an expected average of 1.37 over the course of his tenure. He has underperformed this season, taking three points less than expected.
But last season, he guided United to a third-placed finish on 71 points with an expected total of 61. United 'should' have finished two places lower, based on the expected table. Erik ten Hag, Ralf Rangnick, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer also overperformed relative to expected points while in charge of United, with Ruben Amorim the only exception since 2016.
Carrick's exploits last season raised expectations. If he could take United from seventh to third in the space of a few months, what could he achieve over the course of a full season? But results flattered their performances - and not for the first time.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
