Michael Carrick - Head Coach for the remainder of the season

Pearl's a minger said:
I may be in the minority here but I'd rather the club shook his hand at the end of the season (irrespective of where we end up) thank him for his efforts and move on. Every appointment comes with an element of risk. I know we've had a great run under him since he came in but bar 1 maybe 2 games have we really played that well over the course of these games? The answer is no. Poor at West Ham, Poor v Palace Poor v Everton Poor v Newcastle and not great at Bournemouth. Yes we've been winning more games but lets not forget we only play once a week currently. Carrick also seems to have a reluctantly to freshen the 1st eleven up which in itself will cause problems with greater games next season. I know the Boro fans weren't totally enamoured with in game management and style of play and I know we have a greater calibre of players than them. But I cant help but feel people are going down the same rabbit hole they did when Ole started his interim position at Utd really well. The club cant say they haven't had time to scout out possibilities for the managers position and I still feel we should be aiming a little higher than Carrick. Or else I fear we'll be in exactly the same position in a years time with everyone wanting Carrick out.
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The nature of this Premier League season means that this may be the new normal, at least for now. I've watched more live PL football this year than in recent years, and I've found that literally no teams are putting away their opponents with convincing, dominating performances. It's just not happening for anyone, across the league.
 
Zumbi said:
In some key aspects - yes. Our defensive structure and organization looks infinitely better, which has achieved two very important things. One is that we’re no longer easy to beat, and teams can’t get at us so easily. That’s been a huge problem for us in recent years under Ten Hag and Amorim. Even at home, any team in the league would fancy going after us and getting something off us. That’s just not the case any more - we are hard to break down and get good chances against. That defensive solidity has given a foundation for our attack to work from. A moment of quality from Fernandes, or Sesko, or Cunha, or whoever else, is often now enough to get us valuable points. Before we were so vulnerable defensively that it wouldn’t matter - moments of such quality would be liable to get cancelled out.

Another very relevant consideration particularly for this season is the relative strength and competitiveness of every team in the league, especially in terms of pace and physicality. Noonne is winning games easily or comfortably week in week out. Even the teams at the bottom are often fighting tooth and nail in tight games with those at the top of the league. Carrick’s achievements with our current squad - which most accept isn’t where it needs to be with obvious deficiencies and imbalances - needs to be viewed in that context.

The question marks over rotation and handling a busier schedule are justified, although they’d remain for any other new manager coming in. It’s tough for any team to balance the really busy schedules and get their rotation right. Perhaps more pertinent is what our summer transfer budget is and how successful INEOS are with smart signings in and out.

I hope we start seeing a bit more in possession, and that we start putting some teams to the sword by being more clinical earlier in games, putting daylight between us and the opposition so we can close them out more comfortably.

Without knowing who the other viable managerial prospects are, it’s hard for me to rule Carrick out with the positive things we have achieved. It looks like he might’ve turned a squad which many said wasn’t fit for purpose into a bona fide top four team, which is still a remarkable achievement even if the performances aren’t blowing us away every week. There’s now a foundation for the players, Carrick and INEOS to build from.
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Not just any team in the Premier League. Coventry, Grimsby, and over the years I've lost count of how many teams outside of the top European leagues as well. The fact that people take our newly found solidity for granted is absolutely insane to me.
 
Berggy20913 said:
Not just any team in the Premier League. Coventry, Grimsby, and over the years I've lost count of how many teams outside of the top European leagues as well. The fact that people take our newly found solidity for granted is absolutely insane to me.
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Ah feck how could I forget!? Must be a trauma response.

I find it bemusing because we have fans saying we’re playing poorly whilst any managers coming up against us right now will no doubt be thinking they have one of the most difficult possible games on their hands. No opponents at the moment are going to be thinking “they’re poor, we should get a win here”.
 
andersj said:
Regarding his spell at Middlesbrough I sometimes wonder what made Barcelona have faith in Enrique after his spell at Roma and Celta.

The coaches who came before Enrique, like Spaletti and Ranieri, had a game average of 1,86 and 1,87 points per game from 2005 to 2011. Enrique averaged 1,39 points per game. The guy that preceeded him, Zeman, took 1,64 point. Rudi Garcia took 1,84 point per game again.

The same was the case at Celta Vigo. Paco Herrera before him took 1,58 points per game while Enrique took 1,30 points per game. Then they hired Eduardo Berizzo who took 1,48 points per game.
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These are the sort of more thoughtful questions we need to be asking, not writing coaches off because they didn't set the world alight at a certain club. There are so many factors to a coaches success and coaches can also learn and improve themselves. As football fans we have limited knowledge of what really goes on behind the scenes and to make things worse, a lot of fans have very basic understanding and view points.
 
Zumbi said:
Ah feck how could I forget!? Must be a trauma response.

I find it bemusing because we have fans saying we’re playing poorly whilst any managers coming up against us right now will no doubt be thinking they have one of the most difficult possible games on their hands. No opponents at the moment are going to be thinking “they’re poor, we should get a win here”.
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I'm also not sure when you look at the players available to Carrick, where this idea that we're supposed to run teams off the pitch in a league teeming with quality comes from. If he was to be given a long term contract and the squad was strengthened, I'd be more inclined to be particular about the performances, but in reality being more difficult to play against should be a plus in the performance column.
 
Phil Osophy said:
And that's another thing.

When Mourinho got sacked at Roma they were 9th in January, De Rossi took over and they won 7 in the following 10 (5 wins in his first 6 games), finished 6th, qualified for Europe and got a permanent contract. And then he got sacked in September after a poor start, having finished that previous season poorly too.

A top midfielder, for those who say that midfielders are better managers. A club legend, a natural leader and born in Rome. I don't know if the sacking was unfair and premature, but I know that if this was Ineos they would have given him 2-3 years of a free ride after making him permanent, even breaking all kind of negative records and finishing in the mid table if necessary, just to make it work at any cost before they admit a mistake.

If Amorim hadn't confronted them he'd be still here coaching against us and unable to win two games in a row under the premise that "you need 3 years to prove yourself" and "people don't have patience these days", both according to SJR. And RA was a random guy with no links with the club. If they appoint Carrick and the job becomes too big for him let's get ready for years of obscurity before they decide to correct it.

I may be wrong but I'm almost convinced that Ineos are worried about appointing someone else, failing and being criticized by not allowing Carrick to continue. So except a huge drop in results takes place I'm expecting a self-preservation move by them, appointing Carrick and then hoping for the best.

These guys came to professionalize the club after the mess left by the Glazers, but their decisions look everything except methodical and professional. They talked first about a 'game model' to build an identity for the long term and they went to interview plenty of candidates with different styles, which left you wondering what game model they were talking about.

After all the noise they keep ETH in charge. They sack him some months later and appoint Amorim, and far from correcting the mistake at the end of the season they double down.

Now we're heading towards appointing someone who didn't even appear in the polls 10 games ago, but suddenly he's the best choice because "we win games". Everything at this club is so unserious it makes you laugh.
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This is my biggest fear and where I think our biggest lessons need to be learned. The coach should not be seen as some sort of deity that can only be judged if they are doing well, otherwise they need years with no progress before they can be judged.

We need to not be scared to make the change if we are going nowhere, if we made the change earlier this season we could have found ourselves in a title race. Instead, if he didn't have his tantrum we would be sitting here suffering, being unwatchable and fighting amongst ourselves.
 
Zumbi said:
In some key aspects - yes. Our defensive structure and organization looks infinitely better, which has achieved two very important things. One is that we’re no longer easy to beat, and teams can’t get at us so easily. That’s been a huge problem for us in recent years under Ten Hag and Amorim. Even at home, any team in the league would fancy going after us and getting something off us. That’s just not the case any more - we are hard to break down and get good chances against. That defensive solidity has given a foundation for our attack to work from. A moment of quality from Fernandes, or Sesko, or Cunha, or whoever else, is often now enough to get us valuable points. Before we were so vulnerable defensively that it wouldn’t matter - moments of such quality would be liable to get cancelled out.

Another very relevant consideration particularly for this season is the relative strength and competitiveness of every team in the league, especially in terms of pace and physicality. Noonne is winning games easily or comfortably week in week out. Even the teams at the bottom are often fighting tooth and nail in tight games with those at the top of the league. Carrick’s achievements with our current squad - which most accept isn’t where it needs to be with obvious deficiencies and imbalances - needs to be viewed in that context.

The question marks over rotation and handling a busier schedule are justified, although they’d remain for any other new manager coming in. It’s tough for any team to balance the really busy schedules and get their rotation right. Perhaps more pertinent is what our summer transfer budget is and how successful INEOS are with smart signings in and out.

I hope we start seeing a bit more in possession, and that we start putting some teams to the sword by being more clinical earlier in games, putting daylight between us and the opposition so we can close them out more comfortably.

Without knowing who the other viable managerial prospects are, it’s hard for me to rule Carrick out with the positive things we have achieved. It looks like he might’ve turned a squad which many said wasn’t fit for purpose into a bona fide top four team, which is still a remarkable achievement even if the performances aren’t blowing us away every week. There’s now a foundation for the players, Carrick and INEOS to build from.
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To pick up on your general point with a finer point, Carrick took a side that was in free fall and had to bed in Sesko, who was ineffedctive under Amorim -- and how Carrick has managed Sesko's development has been brilliant. Cunha has gone from decent to brilliant. Mbeumo has been deployed in an unnatural position for him, in order to ease Sesko in at the very least, and it's been a mixed bag, though by no means has Mbeumo become a liability. And the adjustments in midfield. We've discussed all this before. Your point, which is very well taken, is that we are much stronger defensively than we were under Amorim and that with clean sheets all we've needed most of the time, is moments of brilliance. It's fair enough to demand more from Carrick than what he has given us, but in reality without seeing the names of other viable managerial prospects it's really, really hard to rule out Carrick based on what he's accomplished so far. He's built a solid foundation overnight and has us in the driver's seat for a CL spot and for that he deserves a lot more respect than he has received.
 
Berggy20913 said:
I'm also not sure when you look at the players available to Carrick, where this idea that we're supposed to run teams off the pitch in a league teeming with quality comes from. If he was to be given a long term contract and the squad was strengthened, I'd be more inclined to be particular about the performances, but in reality being more difficult to play against should be a plus in the performance column.
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Especially when the argument used to be that this squad is barely top 8 level. I see the same posters who used to claim that now saying they're not very impressed with what Carrick is doing.

Sure, you can make an argument that this game and that game was poor but by the same logic there are zero teams in the league that have actually been impressive.
 
Credit to Carrick for getting results and having us sat in 3rd without our two best CBs available. No De Ligt for his entire tenure. No Martinez for half of his tenure. No problem. He has got Maguire putting in consistently impressive performances. He has improved Yoro, whose confidence looked shot during the last few months under Amorim.

I remember when Klopp's Liverpool had Van Dijk and Gomez out injured and they lost 6 home games on the bounce. A strong CB pairing is the foundation to build a winning team from, yet the gaps in our defence have been plugged rather well. Carrick has alleviated our CB issues with minimal drama.
 
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Scotty Doesn't Know said:
Credit to Carrick for getting results and having us sat in 3rd without our two best CBs available. No De Ligt for his entire tenure. No Martinez for half of his tenure. No problem. He has got Maguire putting in consistently impressive performances. He has improved Yoro, whose confidence looked shot during the last few months under Amorim.

I remember when Klopp's Liverpool had Van Dijk and Gomez out injured and they lost 6 home games on the bounce. A strong CB pairing is the foundation to build a winning team from, yet the gaps in our defence have been plugged rather well. Carrick has alleviated our CB issues with minimal drama.
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I hope so, with Jonny Evans and Woodgate as part of the coaching staff. Those two were pretty solid.
 
Scotty Doesn't Know said:
Credit to Carrick for getting results and having us sat in 3rd without our two best CBs available. No De Ligt for his entire tenure. No Martinez for half of his tenure. No problem. He has got Maguire putting in consistently impressive performances. He has improved Yoro, whose confidence looked shot during the last few months under Amorim.

I remember when Klopp's Liverpool had Van Dijk and Gomez out injured and they lost 6 home games on the bounce. A strong CB pairing is the foundation to build a winning team from, yet the gaps in our defence have been plugged rather well. Carrick has alleviated our CB issues with minimal drama.
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Sir Alex himself said attacks win your games but defences win your titles, making us hard to beat after being so open under ETH and Amorim is nice to see.
 
Bruno on Carrick/Amorim:

Obviously we changed some things [under Carrick]. You change some players, you change positions, you change to a different formation. But at the end of the day, as I said, we start scoring goals.

You know we were creating a lot [under Amorim]. I think, in terms of creation and chances on goal, we were there at the top when Reuben was here, but we were just not finishing. We were also one of the best teams at not allowing teams in our box; but when they did we would concede goals every time.

[Under Carrick] we started to be more compact when we have to defend. We understand now we'll have moments when we have to suffer, when we're not in an excellent moment.

I think the sacrifice we made in the first few games where I think we were - I won't say lucky - but it was good for us that we had two big games straight away because I think if you win against City and then you face Arsenal, who were top of the league and very difficult to play at the Emirates, you could think "oh my god, it's going to be fine, we're going to be fine, we are playing great football now, we're going to win".

We didn't play, let's say... I think City was probably the game we played the best. Against Arsenal we didn't play a great game, but we make the most of it. We find a way of winning the game.

Sometimes big clubs have to find a way of winning games whether it's pretty or not.
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Apokalips said:
These are the sort of more thoughtful questions we need to be asking, not writing coaches off because they didn't set the world alight at a certain club. There are so many factors to a coaches success and coaches can also learn and improve themselves. As football fans we have limited knowledge of what really goes on behind the scenes and to make things worse, a lot of fans have very basic understanding and view points.
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I think he's simply an intelligent guy, he communicates well and has a great ability to judge people so the directors and players are both able to accept his plans. There's no magic hipster formula, it's hard work and training.
 
Kellyiom said:
I think he's simply an intelligent guy, he communicates well and has a great ability to judge people so the directors and players are both able to accept his plans. There's no magic hipster formula, it's hard work and training.
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I'd wager that he's remembered a lot of what SAF did/said and used/adapted/updated it
 
This is his opportunity to get himself the permanent job. The teams around us are not in great form. If he maintains the previous results and gets us into top 3, would be difficult to look past him unless someone like Enrique was to make himself available.
 
We've been shite under him for a while now. Not having a midfield is a valid excuse though, I don't think anyone can do much better with what we have. So slow, so shit.
 
Yeah he’s fluffed his lines completely.

24 days without a game is challenging but he should have been doing everything in his power to properly prepare the side. Bare in mind the players have been back well over a week.

The performance looked unprofessional for the most part and that stems from the manager. You just can’t come out and be that flat and then he didn’t change anything.

Hope he can get us over the line for the CL as he’s a club legend and you want him to succeed. But that was emphatically the proof that he isn’t cut out for this job. You’d think he’d be pulling out all the stops at this stage but that’s the last thing I got watching that.
 
Watch the bubble burst burst against Chelsea and Liverpool, performances has been stinky for awhile and the results are going to show

the manager bounce is over
 
Big misstep with no half time changes, we just came out with the same energy and then Martinez made it too hard to do much.
 
So does he actually do any form of tactics or coaching? we look the same shit all the time, we just have some players that sometimes manages to get us some goals here and there.

Should be out of the running for permanent manager.
 
I hope that, in the eyes of the hierarchy, it is possible for him to get CL football without getting the job permanently.
 
What the fecking hell was this? Seems he enjoyed us being destroyed by Leeds so much that he wanted 20 mins more of it before actually being forced to do something. Bizarre management.
 
Two major annoyances for me was the decision to play Maz and no HT subs.
 
That’s the game and the selection that rules him out I think. So many worries in the eleven he went with and nearly all of them came to pass, and then he took far too long to try and correct it. Really poor. He should be completely ruled out now.

At least now the manager search can begin in earnest.
 
Him and his staff had 24 days to prepare for this game and this was the best he could muster? UTD job is too big for him.
 
Too many warning signs for me. Doesn't seem big on tactics and gets the team selection wrong too often.

We will definitely give him the job though cause it's United.
 
It'll set this club back even further should they give it to him permanently. He's a very limited manager who benefited for a few weeks purely from the fact he isn't Ruben Amorim.
 
The lack of preparation for Leeds formation as well as the aggression they'd start the game with is a massive concern.

I said a few games ago Carrick is working himself out of contention and it's intensifying with performances like these.
 
Was waiting for him to make changes at the 30 minute mark when we’d been absolutely overrun by a relegation contender without showing any signs of turning on. Instead we got crickets from him for 60+.

Not good.
 
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