Leeds 1-1 Man Utd: Carrick's new shape lasts one half

Update (30 Oct): the ending below came true in the worst way. United lost 4-1 at Como and 3-0 at home to Bournemouth, and the winless run is now eight. Whether Carrick goes back to this back three at Chelsea is the big selection question in our Chelsea vs Man Utd preview.

Leeds 1-1 Man Utd is a result Michael Carrick can live with, and that tells you how far the bar has dropped. The real story is how he got it: he binned the 4-2-3-1, went to a back three at Elland Road and got our best 45 minutes of the season, before the second half showed why one good half isn't a fix.

Bryan Mbeumo scored on 35 minutes and Dominic Calvert-Lewin levelled six minutes after the break. That's six without a win in all competitions, the first such run since the end of 2018-19, and one league win from seven (BBC Sport). We're 13th, three points behind seventh-placed Leeds.

The shape nobody saw coming

It was Carrick's first move away from the 4-2-3-1 since January. Leny Yoro, Harry Maguire and Lisandro Martínez made a back three, Amad and Diogo Dalot went back to their Amorim-era wing-back jobs, and Bruno Fernandes played as a nominal centre-forward with Mbeumo close by. In effect, it was an Amorim formation.

It worked for a half because it matched Leeds man for man, as Calvert-Lewin acknowledged afterwards:

"They tried to [match us formation-wise]. Not really surprised. Given what happened last season. It took us a little bit to adjust but it was mainly down to us and maybe a lack of quality in the final third."

Tielemans was the best player on the pitch before the break. On 27 minutes he dropped one on Mbeumo's head, our first touch in the Leeds box, and Mbeumo put a free header wide. Eight minutes later he played a one-two with Amad and drilled a low ball across for Mbeumo to slide past James Trafford.

Senne Lammens had already made a full-stretch save from Nico Elvedi. Carlos Baleba, on his first league start, gave the midfield real bite and some much-needed zest.

Half-time, and the wobble

Martínez, five days after his outburst at Jason Wilcox, didn't come out for the second half. Noussair Mazraoui, only just back from a minor injury, took his place on the left and Carrick kept the shape. Carrick later explained: "He felt his thigh a little bit." We looked at what the Martínez injury meant for Como the next day.

Six minutes later it was 1-1. Mazraoui headed Jayden Bogle's cross behind for a needless corner, Tarik Muharemović won Anton Stach's delivery and Calvert-Lewin crashed it home from close range.

Whose man was he? One account says he escaped Baleba, another that he outmuscled Mbeumo, and a third had Maguire pinned by Ethan Ampadu. When three accounts can't agree, the honest answer is nobody. He's now scored in six of his last seven home Premier League games. We knew exactly what was coming.

What the second half says about the back three

The stats tell it plainly. Leeds had 61.3% of the ball, 21 touches in our box to our 13, five shots on target to our three and an xG of 1.44 to 0.91. They won 25 aerial duels to our 17 and covered 115.47km to our 111.47km. We had more shots, 13 to 12, and did less with them.

We faded badly as the game went on, and were outrun again. That's a warning about the shape, not an argument against it. A back three with wing-backs only works if your centre-backs win headers and your wing-backs run for 90 minutes. At half-time we swapped a centre-back for a full-back just back from injury, and the duels went the wrong way.

Then the changes: Mason Mount for Baleba on 74 minutes, Matheus Cunha for Tielemans on 84, with Matthijs de Ligt, Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee left on the bench. Taking off the two midfielders who'd given us control, with Leeds on top, was the wrong way round. We nearly paid when Lammens' added-time punch fell to Stach.

"A point is a point"

Carrick's answers to Match of the Day, as transcribed by NBC Sports:

On whether it was a fair result:

"Yeah, it was a tough game for both teams I think. It was one of those challenging games. You could feel there was an edge to the game. It was a good game. Maybe if you talk about top quality, maybe it wasn't top, top quality I think we are capable of playing. I think in little moments and spells we played some really good football. It's a tough place to come. With the results we've had we weren't quite flowing but there's enough in there to take from it. We had to work for it. I was proud of the boys for the way they went about it in difficult circumstances. A point is a point. It is a step forward for us."

On whether it was more about effort and application:

"It's a bit more than just effort and that. It is the way you go about it. The plan. The responsibilities. The roles. I thought the boys took that responsibility on really well for the most part and to go a goal up and concede in that way is disappointing. I thought we defended pretty well as a team for all the game. Long throws, corners, they are a threat. It was a tense game, a tight game. It was kind of one of those games which could have gone both ways so we take the point and move on."

There was a plan and the players stuck to it, which is more than you could say after the Spurs draw or Madrid. But "we defended pretty well as a team for all the game" is generous when the goal came from the one routine everyone in Leeds knew was coming.

Keep the back three, fix the 51st minute

Jamie Carragher's view was that "in isolation, going to Leeds and performing how they did was a decent result". Nothing at United is in isolation any more. Carrick has two wins from his last ten games, and our preview called 1-1 and said it wouldn't be enough. It isn't.

Still, keep the shape. It gets the best out of Tielemans, it protects Andrey Santos and Baleba, and the wing-backs know the jobs. What it needs is three fit centre-backs who can win a header with the game on the line. De Ligt back in a matchday squad matters more than anything said this week.

Leeds 1-1 Man Utd was a step forward, in Carrick's words, and fair enough. But it's a step that leaves us 13th. Win in Como on Wednesday and this looks like the start of something. Don't, and Bournemouth next Sunday becomes a very long afternoon.