A serious look at Michael Carrick

[Andy_Cole]

Ratcliffe looks to complete early next week. If our form is to be expected this month I can see Jim pulling the trigger on Hag before the January Window. Maybe the trip to Anfield being his last game.

Not many managers out there, but with it being publicised Jim wanting homegrown talent etc. could he also want a British manager? Carrick is the top of my list if it's British. How is he doing this season? I know he's picked up form but looks a little inconsistent in recent weeks.

'Give it Carrick 'til the end of the season!'

Edit: some have highlighted McKenna too. I would be on board with this.

 

[Remember the geese]

Carrick over Mckenna? Not sure about that.

 

[horsechoker]

I'd rather Carrick just stays where he is, works his way up the league and just avoids us for a good 5 years so we don't destroy him as a manager.

 

[Berbaclass]

Ratcliffe looks to complete early next week. If our form is to be expected this month I can see Jim pulling the trigger on Hag before the January Window. Maybe the trip to Anfield being his last game.

Not many managers out there, but with it being publicised Jim wanting homegrown talent etc. could he also want a British manager? Carrick is the top of my list if it's British. How is he doing this season? I know he's picked up form but looks a little inconsistent in recent weeks.

'Give it Carrick 'til the end of the season!'

Ratcliffe won’t sack anybody. He will put footballing people in place to make those decisions.

 

[golden_blunder]

And yet McKennas Ipswich is flying

 

[Giggsy13]

McKenna is the one we should be looking at.

 

[Samid]

McKenna all day.

 

[Smithy89]

He needs to stay away from United, much better left at Boro over this toxic club.

 

[spiriticon]

We need experienced hands. Very experienced hands.

I was wrong about both Carrick and McKenna. They clearly have more to their locker than what they showed at United. But they are not the right persons at this time. We will ruin them.

 

[SirAF]

Give it Giggsy

 

[Marcelinho87]

We need experienced hands. Very experienced hands.

I was wrong about both Carrick and McKenna. They clearly have more to their locker than what they showed at United. But they are not the right persons at this time. We will ruin them.

under current ownership we would but this is talking as if it’s under Sir Jim’s tenure - we can only hope he’d be backed with a better footballing structure.

although this isn’t for me, not yet as I firmly think they need to prove themselves for longer.

 

[Robbie Boy]

No.

 

[Ish]

If we could get someone like Alonso in, we should try our utmost. Maybe even de Zerbi as he's more qualified than Carrick/McKenna? Let the 2 of them develop and prove themselves a bit more.

 

[Rojofiam]

Way too early for both Carrick or McKenna, but both should be being monitored as future candidates for the manager position...and I'm sure that's already happening.

Also, your assumptions are based on nothing.

Ratcliffe won't decide to sack anyone, it will be the team he puts in charge making those decisions, and no one knows what their intentions are and how they view ten Hag's situation. That won't change unless a reliable source breaks something about it.

Also, isn't the "buy British" article from the Daily Mail or some similarly unreliable paper? It's very likely untrue and just something they knew would rile up some sections of the fan base, like the LUHG brigade.

 

[Woodzy]

Absolutely not. The last thing we want is people coming into this club who already knows some of these players and has favourites.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Our fan base refuses to learn...

No class of 92 realtionships, no ex players, no one with personal connections to any of this lot because they need a complete culture shift and that will mean many of them get forced out, causs problems, generate headlines etc. just as we are seeing right now in the absurd situation where you have fans defending Sancho, or Ronaldo etc.

Oh, and his experience as a first team full time coach is one and half seasons in the Championship...

 

[Hernandez - BFA]

Apart from McKenna's link of working under Ole - does he have any other link with us? Is he a known United fan or something?
I know he worked with the an age-bracket for United too.

If his only link to his was the above, I'm not overly optimistic that he'll look towards us again. Probably would like to close the book on a chapter of his life where he was meme'd about.

Edit: For what its worth, I'd be happy to give him a chance if Ten Hagg faced the chop. Equally, I'd be amazed if we put so much risk into him.

 

[Andy_Cole]

Our fan base refuses to learn...

No class of 92 realtionships, no ex players, no one with personal connections to any of this lot because they need a complete culture shift and that will mean many of them get forced out, causs problems, generate headlines etc. just as we are seeing right now in the absurd situation where you have fans defending Sancho, or Ronaldo etc.

Oh, and his experience as a first team full time coach is one and half seasons in the Championship...

I disagree with this notion. Our modern day DNA was the Fergie era. The biggest mistake we made was tearing that whole history up and losing it. Yes we tried to bring it back a little with Ole but seems we’ve torn it back up again with Hag.

If you read Fergie’s Leading book we were actually a modern club right until he left. Then with the continued change of management there’s been 10 years of negligence sadly. The structure should have been there from 2013, which would have been the old guard, people who have spent their lives at the club. We should have had the Bayern model. Now we’ve lost our soul. The manager is a fickle position on the most part but if the football strategy was maintained since Ferguson we wouldn’t have wasted this much money and also wouldn’t have made such a big mess of things.

 

[Woziak]

Ratcliffe won’t sack anybody. He will put footballing people in place to make those decisions.

Exactly and if that’s Paul Mitchell he will have exceptionally good connections in France and Germany. Alllonso would be a smart move but why would he leave, De Zerrbie is far more gettable ?

 

[tomaldinho1]

I disagree with this notion. Our modern day DNA was the Fergie era. The biggest mistake we made was tearing that whole history up and losing it. Yes we tried to bring it back a little with Ole but seems we’ve torn it back up again with Hag.

If you read Fergie’s Leading book we were actually a modern club right until he left. Then with the continued change of management there’s been 10 years of negligence sadly. The structure should have been there from 2013, which would have been the old guard, people who have spent their lives at the club. We should have had the Bayern model. Now we’ve lost our soul. The manager is a fickle position on the most part but if the football strategy was maintained since Ferguson we wouldn’t have wasted this much money and also wouldn’t have made such a big mess of things.

Your first sentence, in my opinion, proves me right. You have immediately harked back to the good old times as a plan for what we should be doing.

 

[Red_toad]

Absolutely not. The last thing we want is people coming into this club who already knows some of these players and has favourites.

He dropped Bruno and Rashford in his first managerial game at United. Only about 6 players still around from when he left. Every manager has players they rely on, not sure why you think Carrick would be an exception?

 

[Andy_Cole]

Your first sentence, in my opinion, proves me right. You have immediately harked back to the good old times as a plan for what we should be doing.

I think if we continued from Ferguson properly it would have been a success.

Maybe 10 years gone it’s too late to revert back but I don’t know. What is a fact is though is we’re the biggest spenders in salary and transfers and we still get it wrong. A club of our size shouldn’t be where we are.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Director of Football/Sporting Director first.

So we just target players for the club regardless of manager tbh, like Liverpool/Brighton do. So we don't end up with random dross etc.

 

[kps88]

Our fan base refuses to learn...

No class of 92 realtionships, no ex players, no one with personal connections to any of this lot because they need a complete culture shift and that will mean many of them get forced out, causs problems, generate headlines etc. just as we are seeing right now in the absurd situation where you have fans defending Sancho, or Ronaldo etc.

To be fair, we've tried to go for that cultural reset multiple times with LVG, Mourinho and ETH.

 

[2 man midfield]

It’s pretty funny how some on here want either Carrick or McKenna to be involved again when both of them were basically hounded out for being ‘jobs for the boys’ PE teachers.

 

[M Bison]

Someone in another thread was complaining about how EtH isnt an "elite" manager, i'd be interested in their view on a potential Carrick appointment.

 

[M Bison]

It’s pretty funny how some on here want either Carrick or McKenna to be involved again when both of them were basically hounded out for being ‘jobs for the boys’ PE teachers.

very good point

 

[Ole's screen]

Our fan base refuses to learn...

No class of 92 realtionships, no ex players, no one with personal connections to any of this lot because they need a complete culture shift and that will mean many of them get forced out, causs problems, generate headlines etc. just as we are seeing right now in the absurd situation where you have fans defending Sancho, or Ronaldo etc.

Oh, and his experience as a first team full time coach is one and half seasons in the Championship...

I think people fundamentally see football club structures wrong. To me the point of a football club is to be inward focused - to have an identity and a philosophy of football all of their own based on their roots and history, that goes right through the club up to the first team.

People are so snobbish about our own history, as though we as a club just need to adopt other club’s footballing philosophies because we ourselves are hollow and have nothing to offer. They just wanna be another City, while mocking their hollowness.

The worst mistake post Ferguson remains allowing Moyes to fire our entire back room staff and bring in the Everton lot.

 

[elmo]

And yet McKennas Ipswich is flying

Both won’t make it with us. You’ve our bunch of entitled prats who think they’re too good for them and will just continue to down tools until they get a manager they ‘respect’ for about 6 months and start downing tools again.

 

[tomaldinho1]

To be fair, we've tried to go for that cultural reset multiple times with LVG, Mourinho and ETH.

But did we? We hired LVG with the idea he would be here max 3 years and in that time transition us to being a possession oriented team ready for the next manager to take over. LVG literally said this in one of his early interviews - he was retired and his wife didn't want him taking another job and whilst he's obviously a confident man and thought he could win things in that time - the plan was to learn from the Moyes mistake and commit to an evolution in terms of how we played, the players we bought and produced. Then whoever was to come in next would be coaching a similar style. We binned him and the style pretty quickly despite, when you look back in hindsight, having next to zero support for the manager in the scouting department and missing a lot of players we thought we could get, which meant we put a long domestically retired manager in control of recruitment.

Jose comes in, everything in those 2 years of LVG is erased, the club accepts they just want to win now and actually aren't that bothered about changing how we play. Mou through to Ole at least had some tactical continuity and a lot of similarities but the club essentially always backed players against Mou and Ole they just took the piss out of when you look at some of the capitulations we suffered under him. We really just treaded water and stopped a huge decline through paying through the nose to stay afloat.

ETH is supposed to be changing things and, to be fair, it does look like he is trying - hence all the issues he is encountering with the problem players. On the pitch the concern is real, there is a distinct lack of a plan but off the pitch, I want to see him taking on all these over paid average players and getting them out of the club. The more player vs ETH headlines we read, the better. Maybe ETH's legacy might actually be the first person to actually succeed in changing the culture despite getting fired and he does seem to be trying to enforce his standards (although if he starts Rashford next game I withdraw that opinion) with how he is treating the bigger names in the squad.

I will also add, with all three managers (LVG, Mou, Ragnick) who took on/called out players, the class of 92 hounded them at almost every turn. I'm not sure they have turned on ETH yet but it is only a matter of time.

 

[MadMike]

Our fan base refuses to learn...

No class of 92 relationships, no ex players, no one with personal connections to any of this lot because they need a complete culture shift and that will mean many of them get forced out, cause problems, generate headlines etc. just as we are seeing right now in the absurd situation where you have fans defending Sancho, or Ronaldo etc.

Oh, and his experience as a first team full time coach is one and half seasons in the Championship...

So if an ex-player becomes an actually good manager, you wouldn't pick them... because it's an ex-player? That's utterly counter-productive and the complete opposite of what all clubs do, even the best run ones. I guess Arsenal should never have hired Arteta? Also "people with no personal connection to this lot" have come and repeatedly failed in the last 10 years. LVG, Mou and now Ten Hag. There's no magic formula.

The thing about ex-players is how the relationship is structured. They have to be held at the same standard as every other manager. That part only becomes a problem if you have a weak board who are influenced by pundits (other ex-players) giving support to him. For example the famously well run Bayern brought back ex-player Niko Kovac in 18/19, only after a couple of years of management experience with Eintracht. He did well in his first season, won the double. Soon as things turned sour in the second season, he got the sack in November. And he didn't have control of the transfers or anything during that period.

Every manager you bring, carries a risk of failure. So long as you have a transfer strategy that doesn't depend on the manager and a board that expects high standards and doesn't grant leniency on ex-players, then I don't see the problem with using ex-players as a source for coaches.

I wouldn't mind bringing Carrick in, he always struck me as an intelligent, articulate man and he will understand the difficulty of the task at hand. But if he is, he should be given limited duration contract and have a a board structure that identifies and signs targets for him.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I think people fundamentally see football club structures wrong. To me the point of a football club is to be inward focused - to have an identity and a philosophy of football all of their own based on their roots and history, that goes right through the club up to the first team.

People are so snobbish about our own history, as though we as a club just need to adopt other club’s footballing philosophies because we ourselves are hollow and have nothing to offer. They just wanna be another City, while mocking their hollowness.

The worst mistake post Ferguson remains allowing Moyes to fire our entire back room staff and bring in the Everton lot.

No one wants to be like City - most just want us to have a really good pressing system to be honest (that's been a theme for about 5 years and it's never really happened because it demands players working like dogs off the ball) so - even more appallingly, we probably just want to be more like Pool. I think it's an added bonus if we start being able to play really good positional possession football from the back but you don't need to do that to win things, I do think you have to have a good all round press though.

History should have no bearing on how we play - we should simply strive to continuously aim for the best and evolve. Football is not that complicated, people like to make a huge meal of tactics but the vast bulk of teams play in a broadly similar way and then player quality is what can really differentiate them. If we had players who worked as hard off the ball as many of the teams below us in the table, we would be in the top four battle.

 

[golden_blunder]

It’s pretty funny how some on here want either Carrick or McKenna to be involved again when both of them were basically hounded out for being ‘jobs for the boys’ PE teachers.

Cafs football opinion is complete bollox shocker

 

[Ayoba]

Career suicide for Carrick to join our shower of shite

 

[tomaldinho1]

So if an ex-player becomes an actually good manager, you wouldn't pick them... because it's an ex-player? That's utterly counter-productive and the complete opposite of what all clubs do, even the best run ones. I guess Arsenal should never have hired Arteta? Also "people with no personal connection to this lot" have come and repeatedly failed in the last 10 years. LVG, Mou and now Ten Hag. There's no magic formula.

The thing about ex-players is how the relationship is structured. They have to be held at the same standard as every other manager. That part only becomes a problem if you have a weak board who are influenced by pundits (other ex-players) giving support to him. For example the famously well run Bayern brought back ex-player Niko Kovac in 18/19, only after a couple of years of management experience with Eintracht. He did well in his first season, won the double. Soon as things turned sour in the second season, he got the sack. And he didn't have control of the transfers or anything during that period.

Every manager you bring, carries a risk of failure. So long as you have a transfer strategy that doesn't depend on the manager and a board that expects high standards and doesn't grant leniency on ex-players, then I don't see the problem with using ex-players as a source for coaches.

I wouldn't mind bringing Carrick in, he seems an intelligent man and he will understand the difficulty of the task at hand. But he should be given limited duration contract and have a a board structure that identifies and signs targets for him.

As it stands, yes, I think there's a real issue within the club with favoritism and a blindness to address problem players who are academy/popular names. Carrick could turn out to be a great coach but, let's be honest, he shouldn't be in the frame for the job with us for many years unless he does something miraculous - maybe then our dressing room will be ready for someone with a bit more of a nostalgic background.

There is no magic formula but you can at least mitigate things, we've also hired really old/past it or unqualified coaches for the most part bar ETH. So really have we got a track record of sensible appointments of the correct pedigree to look at? I'd say we don't.

 

[hobbers]

Career suicide for Carrick and for McKenna. Neither of them would take an interim job regardless.

And even if you could get McKenna to come for 6 months, you'd have to purge the squad first.

Rashford, Antony, Varane, Casemiro, Sancho, Martial would all have to have been binned off before hiring someone like McKenna.

 

[Bwuk]

Career suicide for Carrick and for McKenna. Neither of them would take an interim job regardless.

And even if you could get McKenna to come for 6 months, you'd have to purge the squad first.

Rashford, Antony, Varane, Casemiro, Sancho, Martial would all have to have been binned off before hiring someone like McKenna.

Id be fine with binning all of the players listed.

 

[Hugh Jass]

We have turned into a graveyard for managers and players, so it would be tanking your managerial career early on if he was to come.

 

[MancunianAngels]

Let Carrick finish his job at Middlesbrough. He then needs to pick his next move carefully. Feels like he could do well abroad for a few years.

Let him then potentially get the job once he's ready and in a position to thrive long term rather than do an Ole.

 

[MadMike]

As it stands, yes, I think there's a real issue within the club with favoritism and a blindness to address problem players who are academy/popular names. Carrick could turn out to be a great coach but, let's be honest, he shouldn't be in the frame for the job with us for many years unless he does something miraculous - maybe then our dressing room will be ready for someone with a bit more of a nostalgic background.

There is no magic formula but you can at least mitigate things, we've also hired really old/past it or unqualified coaches for the most part bar ETH. So really have we got a track record of sensible appointments of the correct pedigree to look at? I'd say we don't.

Again, I disagree. When you're in the state that we are, it's hard to attract actual top managers. We're a poisoned chalice. And if you do, you sometimes surrender too much control to them as a condition for them coming in. We did that both with Mou and with ETH now.

Using a young manager while your board cleans up house is a good idea. Barca did it with Pep when they got rid of Rijkard and are doing it now with Xavi. Real did it with Zidane after Benitez. Arsenal did that with Arteta (Edu got the remit to go and clear out all the deadwood like Ozil, Auba, Pepe etc). These are all good examples ex-players becoming good managerial appointments without too much previous experience.

It's all good so long as the board has a clear plan and ambition and doesn't let the situation get out of control. And if not, then nothing can save you anyway.