For the past two Premier League seasons, Amazon Prime’s cameras were embedded inside Manchester City, capturing in vivid detail the gradual unravelling of Pep Guardiola.

Yet to be released in Australia, the new documentary, A Beautiful Obsession, does not sound like the sort of sanitised sports feature we have come to expect. This one might actually be worth watching.

It contains raw footage of an angry Guardiola threatening to quit after one poor performance, another in which he is brought to the brink of tears after a dressing-room dispute with then-captain Kyle Walker, and a separate speech to his players in which he speaks about the breakdown of his marriage, urging them to not lose the “passion” for the game that he and his ex-wife had lost between them.

This season, Amazon has sent its cameras into the other half of Manchester. Their next All or Nothing project is unlikely to be as compelling.

Not because Manchester United aren’t compelling; despite their 13-year title drought, they are still one of the most talked-about sporting teams in the world, forever and always in the headlines everywhere.

It’s because Michael Carrick probably won’t be providing that level of material. It’s just not in him.

Carrick’s predecessor, Ruben Amorim, quipped during pre-season that United’s press conferences had become “more boring” since he left the club. He meant it as a joke, but there may be something in it. Amorim was famously honest, and gave shockingly blunt appraisals at times of his team, squad and their performances, presumably intended to provoke a response that never came.

But “boring” seems to be working out just fine for Manchester United.

When Amorim was sacked in January, Carrick was swiftly appointed for his second caretaker spell as United manager, and after delivering 12 wins in 17 games and a return to the UEFA Champions League via a third-place Premier League finish, he was rewarded with a permanent contract and a mandate to do whatever he believes is required to restore the club to full glory.

But this has not been a summer of reinvention; what Carrick believes is required is what they were already doing, the same way they were doing it.

“I said it when I first came here – I was approaching every day as if I would be here for a long period of time, because I think that was the only way,” Carrick says.

“If it was a short-term fix every day or every week, then we would never move forward, so I was conscious of that. In terms of coming back pre-season, it’s been building on what we’ve already achieved, really, and it doesn’t change what I do, or how I think from day to day.”

Carrick spent more than a decade at United as a player, and was part of the last team to finished above City on the ladder, in 2012-13, which is also the last time they won the Premier League.

Most of his career – for club and country – was spent in the shadows of bigger names, doing work that didn’t always immediately catch the eye. He was also famously reserved; Sir Alex Ferguson once described Carrick as a “shy boy who needed to be shaken at times”.

“It’s only noise if you listen to it. Otherwise, it’s quite quiet, if you go home, switch off and stay within the bubble that we’ve got.”Michael Carrick

Those qualities have carried through to management. He is the quiet man who has assumed arguably the Premier League’s loudest job. Carrick is a cool, calm and collected operator who chooses his words carefully. Even through the unnatural medium of a 15-minute Zoom interview from the other side of the world, he projects an almost disarming sense of ease. He doesn’t seem burdened by the job, nor particularly interested in performing the role of Manchester United manager for anyone else’s benefit.

“You don’t have to have my personality to be successful,” Carrick says.

“Hopefully, it works for me. I think it’s more of us, and myself personally and the staff, trying to commit to what we believe in and in the end, convincing the players and helping the players to be able to perform.

“Personality goes in different ways. The emotion of it has to get you. You have to be connected with it, you can’t detach yourself from it, because that’s the beauty of being here, that sense of what it means and the achievement and expectation that comes from myself, anyway. It’s hard to say ... you are who you are. I’m just trying to get the best out of myself.”

Former Liverpool great Jamie Carragher reckons Carrick doesn’t have the requisite “stardust” to turn United into major trophy winners – a criticism that in some ways echoes his playing days.

As always in football, results will decide how he is perceived. Continue as they did last season, and Carrick’s calmness will be hailed as composure; start losing, and it will look like he’s too passive. His manner can be interpreted as quiet authority, or as a lack of charisma. The absence of drama around him is refreshing now, but after a run of defeats, it could just as easily become evidence that he lacks the presence for one of the biggest jobs in football.

What Carrick does have, though, is lived experience of the constant noise that seems to swirl around Manchester United, and a method for how to deal with it.

“It’s only noise if you listen to it,” he says. “Otherwise it’s quite quiet, if you go home, switch off and stay within the bubble that we’ve got here within the football club, and believe in what we’re doing and trust each other.”

Carrick doesn’t bite at much. Asked what he thinks United need to improve to take the next step, the answer is simple: many things, including those they were already doing well.

Nor is he willing to entertain any broader narratives. There is a sense that the Premier League is entering a new era: for the first time, the season begins without any of Ferguson, Guardiola, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho or Jurgen Klopp in one of the dugouts. There are nine new managers, an unprecedented level of turnover that suggests the race to dethrone reigning title holders Arsenal could be quite open as those clubs adjust to their rulers.

But even that is not something Carrick has spent much time contemplating.

“It’s not something I think about,” he says. “We’re just trying to get the best out of ourselves.”

Fair enough.

The biggest question for United is whether Carrick’s squad can manage to maintain the same level of performance next to the added physical demands of the UEFA Champions League, where they will play a minimum of eight more games.

Carrick believes his players are actually more accustomed to the rhythm of European football than they were to the strange stop-start nature of last season, when United could sometimes go a week or two, or more, between matches.

The physical challenge is different, he concedes, but: “We keep improving the squad to be able to accommodate that.”

The loss of Casemiro has been offset by the signings of midfielders Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans from Chelsea and Aston Villa, while reports suggest they are also closing in on a deal for Brighton’s Carlos Baleba. More reinforcements will probably be needed, most obviously at left-back to provide cover for Luke Shaw, while it remains to be seen if Marcus Rashford will stick around after his loan return from Barcelona.

None of the new signings are marquee names – there’s no “stardust”, in other words – and that is entirely fitting with the understated vibe of Carrick’s United. But now we’ll find out how real this revival really is, and how far his modest sensibilities can actually take them.

At some stage, the honeymoon will end, the pressure will mount and Carrick’s defining qualities will be properly tested. Perhaps Amazon’s cameras will reveal another side to him. Or maybe the strain of the job will produce the sort of fireworks they are presumably hoping for, and then we’ll find out what’s really hiding behind that ice-cold facade.

If not, then boring will be just fine for Manchester United – so long as they keep on winning.