There are so many positives from the Michael Carrick era. The three wins were the victory over rivals Manchester City, beating Arsenal on their own patch for the first time in eight years, and the late winner at home to Fulham.

Seeing Kobbie Mainoo come straight back into the team and play well. Matheus Cunha is showing why the club paid £60m for him last summer. Bryan Mbeumo is returning from AFCON with a bang, and so on. 

One of the biggest positives has been the displays of Patrick Dorgu. Since Carrick took over, the 21-year-old has moved to the left wing, with Luke Shaw at left-back, and wow, has it worked. 

In the win over City at Old Trafford, Dorgu made a smart run into the box before a really smart, instinctive finish to put the game beyond the visitors. Then, in the win at Arsenal, he smashed a sublime, improvised finish from range beyond the reach of David Raya, demonstrating a level of ball striking that people perhaps did not know he had. 

Then, the bad news came. After the win at the Emirates, it was confirmed that the Denmark international would be out for up to ten weeks, with a hamstring issue. Perhaps he took the "Gareth Bale career arc" comparisons a little too seriously with that one. 

Nevertheless, with his two goals and general top class displays against City and Arsenal, Dorgu did enough to be nominated for the January Premier League Player of the Month award. 

He has been nominated alongside Enzo Fernandez, Igor Thiago, Harry Wilson, Crysencio Summerville, Yasin Asari, Florian Wirtz, and Junior Kroup. The winner will be announced next week or so. 

This really just goes to show what coaching can do. It is not that Dorgu was hopeless under Ruben Amorim - he scored against Newcastle United in one of his final games, in the one time he was ever used as a winger - but he never showed what he has in two games under Carrick. 

It is not some absolute genius that has unlocked all of this, either. Sometimes football is just about going back to basics. Reverting to a 4231 has allowed United to do this. Wingers playing as wingers, attacking midfielders playing as attacking midfielders, deep-lying midfielders playing as deep-lying midfielders. Full-backs playing as full-backs. Well, you get the idea. 

It's just a shame that we probably won't see Dorgu again until April. It is now up to Matheus Cunha to grab this opportunity for himself in the starting XI. Anyway, you can vote for United's number 13 to win the award here. 

Roundtablesports is Free to join! You can post your own thoughts, comment on articles, and start conversations with our Roundtable Writers. Scroll up to the top of the page and click 'Join'.

Download the FREE Roundtable APP, and get even easier access to your favourite teams and news!