Michael Carrick lauds genius tactical masterstroke Ruben Amorim used to sink Brighton

Manchester United legend Michael Carrick has hailed a brilliant tweak used by Ruben Amorim that completely undid Brighton and Hove Albion.

United made it three wins on the bounce as they cruised to a 4-2 victory over Brighton at Old Trafford on Saturday.

United were leading 2-0 by half-time, courtesy of strikes from Matheus Cunha and Casemiro . Bryan Mbeumo extended United’s advantage at the hour mark with a fine left-footed finish.

It looked as though the Red Devils were cruising to a comfortable victory, but late strikes from Danny Welbeck and Charalampos Kostoulas sparked a tense finale.

However, Mbeumo came up clutch, smashing the ball into the roof of the net in the 97th minute to secure all three points for the hosts.

It was a superbly managed game from Amorim, whose clear instructions pushed Brighton into errors and ensured United capitalised fully. Speaking on Match of the Day , Carrick particularly named Amorim’s midfield set-up as something that Brighton had no answer for.

The United legend said, “Lots has been said about the midfield two, the pairing and the spaces that they’ve got to cover over the last year or so really.”

“From me as an ex-midfielder, it’s something that I’m really interested in of they get support and help, you can’t expect two midfielders, against a good team, to deal with three and four players, so how do you find the solution?”

“They’ve found a solution with the forwards dropping in to this middle zone, that we are showing here, to support Bruno [Fernandes] and Casemiro . They’ve found support with Luke Shaw jumping in on [Georginio} Rutter and staying in there, almost making a three in midfield.”

Carrick added, “In the end, it’s a numbers game and it’s a space game and you’ve got to fill the right spaces.”

“Bruno, Luke Shaw , and Casemiro here are filling that middle of the pitch, just kept them solid. There is no way against a Brighton team you could ask Bruno and Casemiro to do that, and the formation was quite fluid.”

“You see Cunha backtracking in the left back position here, it summed it up. It was such a big shift from Mbeumo, Cunha, Bruno, Casemiro and Luke Shaw .”

Carrick also hailed the developing understanding between Cunha, Mbeumo and Fernandes.

The former England international explained, “I’ve kind of got a smile on my face because when you get that moment as a footballer, and you get a connection with somebody, and some say it’s a wavelength, and you almost play off instinct.”

“I kind of put it as you almost play with a smile and say because you enjoy playing with each other, and it looks like they’ve [Cunha, Fernandes, Mbeumo] found that connection and two of them have just arrived in the summer, Bruno’s been there for a period of time.”

“It’s not just them three, but it feels that there’s something really fun about the way they want to play.”

“There was a lot on the game today, you know, playing to go three wins after beating Liverpool and everyone going yeah but it’s happened before type thing, a big game to go again, they’ve lost against Brighton in the past, so it was a big game today and I thought they played ever so well.”

United are back in action on Saturday when they go away to Nottingham Forest.

Featured image Carl Recine via Getty Images

online polls

The Peoples Person has been one of the world’s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social