Leicester win might be a glimpse into the future if Michael Carrick achieves Middlesbrough goal

Thus far, Middlesbrough’s approach to football under Michael Carrick

has been characterized by a very distinct philosophy.

The Boro manager prefers his team to be aggressive, maintain possession,

and remain upbeat. He has had great success thus far,

as seen by his 54% victory rate as the current Manchester United legend,

which is more than that of any previous permanent Boro manager.

Never forget, though, that Carrick wants to return Boro to the Premier League,

just like everyone else in the club’s highest echelons.

That’s precisely why Carrick’s more defensive-focused,

counterattacking game plan versus Leicester City on Saturday saw the

compromise of these ideals in order to secure three crucial points.

The head coach of Boro will be closely monitoring the Premier League

this season with those goals in mind, in addition to his natural obsession

with the game. He’ll be paying close attention to the

performance of the three promoted sides in particular, analyzing their successes and failures,

and learning as much as he can in case Boro are ever placed in that situation.

The fact that Burnley, Sheffield United, and Luton are currently in

the bottom three clearly illustrates the difficulty promoted teams

have when making the transition from the Championship to the Premier League.

So far, out of twelve, they have all only managed one triumph.

Although both Luton and Sheffield United had shortcomings during

their campaigns for promotion the previous season, maybe the

Not only has Vincent Kompany’s team just managed one win thus far,

but they have actually lost ten of their first twelve games,

giving up a staggering thirty goals and scoring only nine goals.

They would have been the one you would have given the best chance out of the three,

but they have had a tremendous amount of difficulty thus far.

Kompany would likely contend that Burnley’s record doesn’t fully

reflect their performance, but since the game is results-driven,

Burnley is now outclassed even though they are attempting to play a similar

style to the one that helped them win the Championship title the previous season.

Ultimately, even with a summer transfer window to attempt to close the gap,

that is a dilemma that all Championship teams advancing to the Premier League will face. The fact that

Leicester has made progress, keeping several of its Premier League

players and adding more to their roster. When he laid out his game plan on Saturday,

Carrick showed the Foxes a great deal of respect, demonstrating both his tactical prowess and his winning mindset.

It was disrespectful to the extent that the goal was to just get by by any means.

Boro had many opportunities and were not truly at their best for

long stretches of time when it came to their possession work. Rather,

their 1-0 victory was the result of strong defense and a magical moment from Sam Greenwood.