Michael Carrick is on course to keep his job as Man Utd head coach and club bosses should be wary of changing course now.
They won’t get six points for it, but Sunday was a match that needed winning twice for Manchester United. That they did so, after the body blow of gifting Liverpool a way back in, said more about what Michael Carrick has built than any interview possibly could.
The first 10 minutes of the second half were the kind of spell from which recent United teams wouldn’t have been able to recover, and the supporters would have known it too.
But this was evidence of everything that Carrick has built in his 111 days as head coach. The players needed a moment to clear their heads, but they stuck together on the pitch. Off it, the fans didn’t let spirits drop either.
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It would have been easy to fear the worst, but both parties were unified. Liverpool had their spell in the ascendancy, but the noise inside Old Trafford didn’t dim, and that support can give the players something to hold on to.
United got those errors from Amad and Senne Lammens out of their system, and the introduction of Patrick Dorgu tilted the balance their way. Kobbie Mainoo’s winner almost brought the house down.
United could have strolled to victory, going through the motions in the second half to earn a 2-0 or 3-0 win, maybe. It would have been impressive and another tick in the box for Carrick. In a way, winning the game the way they did told us so much more about what has been built since mid-January.
“I have to say the way the supporters got behind us after the two goals, it’s easy after that point to get frustrated, to go the other way a little bit,” Carrick said after the game.
“I thought that again, spirit and your character show when it’s a little bit of a challenging time, so I think to feel like we’ve kind of built that and we’re in a position where we’ll all stick together has really pleased me a lot.
“The pleasing thing is to see that camaraderie looking after each other, it was tested obviously at 2-2 and seeing them sticking in and fighting for each other is what we want, we want a team to be proud of and the boys have certainly given us that.”
The question now is, can United officials risk ripping that up and starting again? It has reached the point where it feels like a bigger gamble to do just that than to appoint a head coach with limited experience at the highest level.
Carrick said the job felt “natural” to him on Sunday and you can see what he means. He has taken it all in his stride and he has the unequivocal backing of his players. Can Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Omar Berrada, Jason Wilcox and co really ignore those noises?
The 44-year-old wrapped a protective arm around Amad and Lammens after the game, after their errors handed Liverpool a way back in. Carrick was quick to point out that they had both “offered so much within the group” to help United to reach this position.
Ruben Amorim had started to build that togetherness and spirit that Carrick lauded on Sunday, but the Portuguese could also be brutal with his players. From calling them possibly the worst team in Manchester United’s history to criticising individual players, he sometimes undermined what he was attempting to build.
Carrick has taken on a very different approach, and even on Sunday, when he gave the impression he had done enough to earn a shot at next season, he continually turned the praise back onto his players. Take this when asked about how he had gone about building that togetherness during his time in charge.
“I can only say from what I’ve kind of faced and seen from my own eyes really and ever since we came back through the doors I think the boys have responded really well to it,” he said.
“I think it comes through trust as well and how you treat each other and the trust between us and the belief certainly that I’ve got in them and the staff have got in them.
“We spoke about that before the game, about how much belief we’ve got in them, and so trying to give them that confidence to not play really good players, and it can be a really good team when we put things in place, and that’s proved to be the case over recent months.”
The case should now be closed. United need look no further than the man currently occupying that office at Carrington for a head coach.
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