Manchester United have spent a combined £219.7m on eight defenders since the summer of 2022, yet the back four that starts against Hull City this weekend could be almost identical to the one that opened the season four years ago.
Manchester United's 2026-27 Premier League campaign begins away at newly promoted Hull City on Saturday, 22 August 2026, with an early kick-off at 12:30 BST, according to the BBC. The fixture is already live on the Premier League's official match pages, per the Premier League website.
Back on 7 August 2022, Erik ten Hag handed starts to Lisandro Martinez, who had joined that summer for £56.7m, alongside Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw and Diogo Dalot. That afternoon ended in a 2-1 defeat to Brighton.
Fast forward to 2026, and Michael Carrick used exactly the same back line in six of his 17 Premier League matches, and it may well be his choice again for the trip to Hull.
Despite the huge overhaul elsewhere at Old Trafford, these four defenders have somehow remained constant fixtures - even if consistency in selection has been anything but guaranteed.
In four years, the quartet has lined up together on just 10 occasions, and 60 per cent of those appearances have come under Carrick's management, shaped by injuries, loss of form and managerial changes.
Their first two outings together both ended in defeat, with a particularly harsh 4-0 loss to Brentford standing out. After that reverse, the four did not play together again until 30 October 2022, when United beat West Ham 1-0.
In between, Ten Hag turned to alternatives such as Tyrell Malacia, who had also arrived in the summer of 2022, plus Raphael Varane and Victor Lindelof, rotating them alongside various combinations of the regular back four.
Maguire was a notable casualty of that period, dropped to the bench for large stretches of the early 2022/23 season and then sidelined for a month with a hamstring injury.
That same campaign also saw both Martinez and Dalot miss games through injury, though Dalot's fitness record has been considerably better since then.
The same cannot be said for Martinez or Shaw. The Argentine defender spent much of the first half of the 2023/24 season out with a foot problem, before rupturing his ACL in February 2025. He did not return to action until November, following nine months of rehabilitation.
Shaw, meanwhile, has been a near-permanent fixture on the treatment table, managing just 27 appearances across all competitions during the combined 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons.
The summer of 2024 brought further defensive upheaval, with Varane and Aaron Wan-Bissaka both departing and Leny Yoro, Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs de Ligt all arriving. Ayden Heaven and Patrick Dorgu followed in January 2025.
Even with those new faces, settled selection remained elusive - not helped by a managerial change midway through the campaign. Ten Hag left in October 2024, replaced by Ruben Amorim, whose 14-month tenure never once featured the Martinez-Maguire-Shaw-Dalot combination.
Amorim was a committed advocate of a 3-4-3 system, sticking rigidly to it even as results at Manchester United deteriorated. He eventually switched to a back four for the first time in December 2025, against Newcastle, recording a clean sheet for the first time since early October in the process.
Less than a fortnight later, though, he departed the club, reportedly unhappy at feeling forced into that tactical U-turn. Carrick was subsequently appointed.
In his very first match in charge, Carrick selected Martinez, Maguire, Shaw and Dalot as United beat Manchester City 2-0. He went on to pick that same back four on five further occasions, and United did not lose any of those matches, recording five wins and one draw.
Only two clean sheets came from those six games, however, and three of the victories finished 3-2, underlining that defensive fragility has not been entirely eradicated.
De Ligt's fitness has also been a complicating factor. He has not featured since November 2025 because of a back injury, meaning he has never been available for selection under Carrick - though he returned to first-team training this week.
Manchester United's business at the back has been notably conservative of late, with no major defensive signing since Dorgu arrived some 18 months ago. Malacia left this summer, following Lindelof and Jonny Evans out of the exit door last year. Should Carrick want to maintain the approach he has established over the past six months, reinforcements may need to be considered.
Squad planning and transfer context
United's defensive business does not sit in isolation from the club's wider squad planning this summer, with question marks also hanging over the forward line - Manchester United could reshape their attack with Marcus Rashford's future unresolved, while Joshua Zirkzee has been linked with Juventus and Dusan Vlahovic and Iliman Ndiaye have emerged as options.
There is also a structural constraint to factor in, with Manchester United's squad limits potentially forcing sales or restricting further signings, as Premier League rules leave room for only two more non-homegrown additions. That squeeze may well shape whether Carrick can bring in fresh defensive cover before the market closes.
Carrick has already dropped hints about the club's direction this summer - Michael Carrick offered a clear transfer hint after Manchester United beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 in Sweden, with Joshua Zirkzee and Altay Bayindir among those facing uncertain futures. Meanwhile, wider recruitment plans continue to take shape, with Manchester United weighing up a move for Aurelien Tchouameni among the decisions Carrick faces as he builds his squad for 2026/27.
Since taking charge, Carrick has clearly favoured a defensively compact approach, with the team sitting deep and staying tight to protect the edge of their own box - a solidity that underpinned several impressive results.
Pre-season form, however, suggests something of an evolution. Manchester United have been pushing higher up the pitch, pressing and counter-pressing more aggressively in an effort to win the ball back quickly after losing possession.
That approach was tested against Amorim's Milan in pre-season, where the press was not quite sharp enough - the fourth goal United conceded stemmed from a single ball played over a high defensive line.
That game arguably illustrated exactly why serious investment at left-back is needed. Shaw will require regular rotation given the extra fixtures that come with European competition, and while supporters are eager to see Dorgu deployed there, Carrick has mostly used him as a left winger so far.
Dorgu could yet help Manchester United execute their preferred style more effectively, with genuine recovery pace at the back essential for those moments when the high-pressing approach is caught out.
Age remains a relevant factor too. Maguire and Shaw are both over 30, while Martinez is 28 and Dalot 27 - all technically in their prime years, but questions remain over how well they can adapt to yet another stylistic shift.
What happens next
Manchester United's first match of the new campaign is away to Hull City on Saturday, 22 August 2026, kicking off at 12:30 BST, according to the BBC. Notably, this will be the first meeting between the two clubs in the top flight in a decade, as Hull return to the Premier League, per Sky Sports.
United's first home fixture of the season follows a week later, against Ipswich Town on the weekend of 29-30 August 2026, as confirmed by The Athletic. Sky Sports' fixture analysis has also described United's opening six games as among the easiest in the Premier League this season, according to Sky Sports, with tougher tests including the first Manchester derby in September and away trips to Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal before the end of the year.
Ultimately, while so much has changed around Manchester United's squad, the defensive line remains a curious constant. Four years on from that opening-day defeat to Brighton, Martinez, Maguire, Shaw and Dalot still represent a viable option for Carrick - though how long that remains the case is far from certain.
