Both Michael Carrick and the man who has decided to sack him were present on Saturday night at a 40th anniversary dinner for Sir Alex Ferguson, staged in the dining suite where the Old Trafford dressing rooms used to be. It was lost on no one that Carrick, oozing class and humour that evening, spoke far better than Omar Berrada, Manchester United’s chief executive.
There were 100 or so present and Carrick had just been through the wringer of the 3-2 win over Roma but he did not let his predicament obscure the bigger picture. Carrick ‘spoke brilliantly’, actor James Nesbitt, who was also present, related. ‘The Roma result had just happened, but he showed a real gratitude to Sir Alex. He spoke with confidence and humour, but also with a real understanding of the enormity of what he achieved.’
Those who really understand United would not have been surprised. In the days when it was a classy, brilliantly run club, Carrick was the one who, perhaps more than any other senior player, would always look out for the rank-and-file staff – ensuring that the backroom teams were taken out for a drink at the end of the season, and that taxis home were laid on.
It was he who latched on to what was good about the Manchester United ‘family,’ ensuring that everyone from the reception staff to the laundry team were made to feel a part of it. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos have clinically dismantled the old sense of a United ‘community’ but Carrick’s return created a gratifying sense around Old Trafford, back in January, that it was perhaps not entirely dead.
All of which contributes to the unalloyed rage that many who love the club will be feeling today about the shameful and classless treatment of Carrick. A man forced through the ritual of driving into the training ground at 7.15am this morning by Berrada and United director of football Jason Wilcox – men not fit to lace his boots – when the whole world knows he is toast.
As Carrick, a professional to his core, went through this painful charade, Berrada and Wilcox – the Statler and Waldorf of the modern Manchester United – had had their secretaries arrange air travel to Monaco today for a meeting with Ratcliffe, which could not be brought forward.
Michael Carrick oozes class and humility but has been dragged through a painful charade by his superiors
Omar Berrada (left) and Jason Wilcox (right) are the the Statler and Waldorf of the modern Manchester United
There have been moments amid the recent tempest which point to United requiring a more commanding manager for the depths that Ratcliffe and his dismal men have reduced the club to. I could see from my vantage point close to the United dugout at their trip to Chelsea, two weeks back, that Carrick simply didn’t have the words to steer the ship away from that afternoon’s disaster.
But in the faces of men like Kobbie Mainoo and, before injury, Marcus Rashford, who have been restored to life and self-belief as United players, we have also witnessed Carrick’s faculty to see and know quality in players and give it full force.
A year ago, we were witnessing Ruben Amorim, the manager hired at vast expense by Ratcliffe’s football geniuses, run down Mainoo’s United career. In the insane mayhem of Sunday afternoon’s 4-4 draw against Aston Villa, he was the team’s creative anchor.
The people who have actually mattered at United – the fanbase – appreciate the respect Carrick warrants. It’s why the anthem carrying his name was still coming down from the Stretford End and the old North Stand on Sunday.
And so, of course, does Sir Alex, even though you half suspect he wondered all along if Carrick had quite the bite for the toughest job in world football, while hoping against hope he’d thrive.
‘There is a casualness about him that causes people to misunderstand his value and his constitution,’ Ferguson wrote of Carrick in his autobiography. ‘His handicap was, I feel, that he lacked the bravado of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. But his character has always been outstanding. He’s a football man.’ Sir Alex considered Carrick a better player than both those two.
And now what you suspect will be Carrick’s valedictory days at the club he has served so well are presided over by executives whose own fitness for purpose at Old Trafford was an open question from the start.
Very few people around Manchester City viewed the loss of Berrada, their ‘chief football officer’, as something to be fearful about, when Ratcliffe decided to make him United’s chief executive in 2024. Some former City insiders privately wondered how on earth he’d landed a job of that kind.
‘There is a casualness about him that causes people to misunderstand his value and his constitution,’ Sir Alex Ferguson wrote of Carrick in his autobiography
Sir Alex considered Carrick a better player than both Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard
United want to tell Carrick ‘face to face’ what the whole world knows. These people won’t even discern what gross disrespect they are affording a man who deserves far better
And if Ratcliffe thought he was accessing City’s intellectual property when recruiting Jason Wilcox as technical director, then that was dodgy logic, too. Wilcox had only run City’s academy – a grossly incomparable challenge. His comparable experience to the United role was a mere 15 months as Southampton’s director of football. They were in the Championship for some of that time.
These were the men jetting out to Ratcliffe’s tax haven to tell him who should and should not manage United. Thus subjecting Carrick to another phantom training session at the Carrington training ground – two weeks after watching the Under 21s play there while those Chuckle Brothers put their heads together about sacking him, across the complex.
United are putting it around, would you believe, that they want to be seen to be ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘observing the right process.’ Well frankly, many inside football view this leadership group’s decision making as an embarrassment.
Nesbitt expressed sympathy for Carrick. ‘I feel for him,’ he said. ‘I’m no pundit but I am a fan. Clearly there’s dissatisfaction with the fans about what we perceive is going on, but I think he’s trying his best.’
United want to tell Carrick ‘face to face’ what the whole world knows. These people won’t even discern what gross disrespect they are affording a man who deserves far better.
