'Michael Carrick's at the wheel!' ... Haven't Man United been here before?

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. After successive wins against the Premier League's top two in Arsenal and Manchester City, Michael Carrick couldn't have dreamed of a better start to life as Manchester United's boss. Listen, I'm enjoying it, you know, it's a fantastic position to be in. What happens next is I'm not going to be answering it every week because it is what it is. But at the moment, I'm really enjoying it and I'll continue to do what I can. A few more performances like Sunday's and the clamour for him to stay on will be deafening. In some quarters, it's already started. But United have been here before.

0:37Have lessons been learnt internally or is this time different? What does history teach us about the caretakers who got the job and what are the other choices out there? Welcome to the Sports Agents.

0:58The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman Just me today, no Gabby although I haven't really made an effort after her comments about me not being on the fashion episode but anyhow in a moment Neil Redfern will join us, now he was three time caretaker manager at Leeds United in the 2010s and the Athletics Manchester United correspondent Carl Anker as we delve into everything to do with Michael Carrick You can get in touch, thesportsagentsatglobal.com on email, messages on social media. Our past episodes are on YouTube, Global Player, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please follow, comment and review when you listen and watch.

1:39The Sports Agents. Well, Carl, Neil, thank you very much for joining the Sports Agents, both of you. Neil, I'll come to your experiences in just a moment. But, Carl, such is the way now of Michael Carrick's next few months is that every week the story could well change, couldn't it? The questions will stay the same, but the story will change on whether they win, lose or draw. Absolutely. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the football industry doesn't like it when things are too calm around Manchester United. So here we go again. Loads of discussion about Michael Carrick. How good is he? Is this just a reversion to type of the old ways of Manchester United playing counter-attack football?

2:26Is Fulham a stronger test than playing Manchester City and Arsenal? Should Michael Carrick, is he at the wheel and should he be made the permanent manager already? And so on and so on and so forth. So the interesting thing right now as a Manchester United reporter or anyone in and around the club is while the list of questions remains the same, we are now able to give you more straightforward answers, if that makes sense. More straightforward answers, answers that don't carry the same amount of footnotes and caveats and asterisks that possibly have existed in the last 20 months of football at this club.

3:02The sad thing, I was talking about this on the radio last night, really, is that just because of what happened with Solskjaer in the end, shouldn't really affect the decision-making on Michael Carrick, should it? Yes and no. I think this is one of those situations where I always go, everyone wears different spectacles, everyone looks at things slightly differently. And there is a very, very good argument to be made that it was the correct decision to make Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the permanent manager rather than interim manager in 2019. And things were going well until the Europa League defeat to Villarreal and the turbulent transfer window that eventually saw United admit they didn't make a plan to re-sign Cristiano Ronaldo, but they brought him in and then whatever grand design Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had, that very quickly got mothballed and disrupted.

3:59Now, the interesting thing, of course, is when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was the permanent manager, one of his assistant managers was Michael Carrick. And Michael Carrick was in, it seemed to be Michael Carrick was in charge of some of the in-possession schemes while it was Kieran McKenna doing the out-possession, defensive work. I think in Carrick's favour, he's very understated in the same way that Michael Carrick, the football manager, is like Michael Carrick, the football player, which is he's not going to try and grab headlines. He's not going to play 100 million miles an hour. He's a person who sees things in a different way, in a certain way.

4:31He's very meticulous. There's been some fantastic writing about how his autobiography came together, including some segments about how to Carrick even being five minutes early counts as being late which you're like yep that's why you're a midfield maestro all about metronomic patterns and tempo there as well I think whatever's going on with Michael Carrick right now in charge of Manchester United I don't think that should mean Jason Warcox Omar Barada or Sir Jim Ratcliffe should be cancelling any scheduled meetings they have with any prospective coaches but I do think if this form continues and there's possibly a good chance that it might they should also then begin to start scheduling meetings with Michael Carrick for the permanent role and the thing here Neil is actually he's been given a contract until the end of the season I don't think they're actually calling him interim or caretaker they've just gone he's in charge until the end of the season to try and get around the the constant questions about caretaker or interim but obviously that that that will completely fail you you at Leeds You were caretaker four times, were you, Neil?

5:34Three. Three? Yeah, caretaker on three occasions, yeah. And also, at other clubs you've done that, at Halifax and York, you've done that as well. What did you find the biggest challenge of being given a caretaker manager role? I think it's an opportunity to sort of try and settle things down, try and get some results out of the players that are playing. They've obviously been signed for a reason. But it's also your career, Neil, isn't it? I mean, this is the other part in all of this. I know you're there to steady the ship and look after the players and so on and so forth, but it's your career as well.

6:07Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think, to be honest with you, the stints I had at Halifax and York City, there was so much going on in the background that it was always going to be another manager coming in. And I think you can sort of read into that a little bit. The Leeds United thing was more... Initially, it was looking after it for the next manager. But as it was going on, because I'd done it a couple of times before, it was almost pre-interview time, if you like. And if I could string some results together, obviously I'd got these young players coming through into the first seam underneath at the time.

6:42Some strong youth players in the academy. And it gave me an opportunity to sort of blood them, give them a chance to go and play without actually affecting my chances of maybe getting the job further down the line. Because I think sometimes as well, it's about circumstances. At Leeds United, the supporters could still hark back to the day of Don Revy. It was a really young team at the time and they could hark back to them days. So any youngster going into the XI or into the squad were given chance. The supporters stayed with them and given that opportunity. I think from my point of view, it was an easy game to get them young players in and try and get the supporters onside.

7:21Even if it was for a new manager coming in, it gave me the best chance perhaps then of maybe putting a claim in to take the top job. Neil, that's fascinating because at least in the more recent Premier League area, you've seen caretaking managers or interim managers perhaps not looking to blood youngsters at that point in time and instead going, well, I'm not going to be here later on down the line. Why do I need to be playing some of these 18, 19-year-olds who are coming through the academy? I mean, I remember Rafa Benitez, when he was in charge of Chelsea for a brief amount of time, got a lot of credit for paying attention to Chelsea's academy at this point in time.

7:58And it was sort of described as he didn't have to do this as a caretaker manager, but the fact that he is, is really good. So when does it ever cross your mind that, well, I'm not going to be here in six months? Why am I doing that in the first place? Does that ever cross your mind? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the last caretaker spell I had at Leeds, it was quite a turbulent time at the club. The owner was a guy called Massimo Cellino, who famously did lots of things differently at the football club. Quite documented. You know, nobody's job was safe. There was cleaners getting sacked for no reason and the parts of the training ground being closed down.

8:34The pool at the club, the academy was closed down. And the club was in a little bit of flux. and it was almost like I had nothing to lose, but I had everything to gain by giving these young players an opportunity. And it was a risk because it's always a risk with young players. It's always a risk putting them in and blooding them and giving them opportunity. But like I said, my experience as a player through quite a few seasons is that the supporters want to get behind their own. And if it's a proper sea change where it's not good, what's been happening before, and all of a sudden you've got these young players coming in, they've got no fear because they just want to play.

9:18And actually playing for their club, their hometown club or whatever it is, and getting a chance to make the debuts just gives everything a lift. It gives the training ground a lift, it gives the supporters a lift, and sometimes it can go wrong, but if you can get it to go right and you can swim with it, then you're on to a winner because your supporters start buying into it. it makes it much easier for the club as regards you're creating assets for the club because they're getting experience of first team football and it's a win-win are you given parameters by the club when you're put in charge as caretaker manager because when you have the permanent job i would have thought part of the interview process when you've been a permanent manager is well this is how i want to play this is how i view the academy this is what i might want in the transfer market etc etc is it the other way when you become a caretaker and those in charge go look we just need you to do x y and z so that when the new person comes in they're ready to go how much freedom do you have mine was just going there tech training you're taking the next game on a Saturday we'll go game by game basis if you get a result or two it's can you do it for another month and you know so on and so on it's interesting because you know we're talking about Manchester United and I just looked at the sides that had been put out so Ruben Amarin's last side result against Leeds United I think it was a 1-1 draw and they played a 3-4-2 1 formation and then Darren Fletcher came in and they reverted to a 4-2-3 1 formation and they've stuck with that formation through Fletcher and Michael Carrick as well so they must feel that the players that they've recruited at the football club suits that system better than any other system there's a little bit of a clue there in regards to what's happening at the top and what they're thinking, other than the manager that's been there before and now gone.

11:08In a sense then, Carl, that would rule out others that play three at the back, wouldn't it? Yes and no. I'm going to be really mean here and say that I don't think there is a football manager in the world who is that beholden to a 3-4-3 in the way that Ruben Amren was beholden to a 3-4-3. After the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City in the derby at the Etihad, He said not even the Pope would make him change his mind. After his dismissal, we were getting reports and getting information that part of the reason why he left Manchester United was Jason Wilcox and others had discussed with him, would he be open to changing into a four at the back?

11:47Now, they tried a little bit, but if we look at other managers in world football that have used a back three, let's take Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace. He told Paul Merson last year that actually his favourite formation is a 4-4-2, but also said it's about the characteristics of the squad available to you you walk in the dressing room you walk into that crystal palace dressing room you go oh wait the best wide players we have a little bit better suited to playing at wing back rather than being wingers we're going to be a three at the back if you look at say xavi alonso xavi alonso wins the bundesliga completely as an invincible with bayer leverkusen he's got two phenomenal wing backs one of them being jeremy frimpong then goes to real madrid takes one look at that squad and goes whoop 4-3-3 so i don't think there is a manager out there in the world who you'd mark against them oh he plays a 3-4-3 and that's why we shouldn't use them apart from the one Manchester United just sacked yeah and and that and that Carl before we come back to Carrick I suppose that that's my point there the scars are so deep because he was so tied to that that yes managers are flexible and should have several different formations and so on and so forth but if they brought in someone who was principally known for play three at the back you can imagine what the reaction would be yeah i i but in the immediate aftermath of ruben amrin being dismissed there was conversation about who was on the potential shortlist of successes and it's a crude metric but you talk to cab drivers you talk to hairdressers you talk to people in and around manchester and quite a few don't want oliver glasner he uses wingbacks so there are scars and in well i'd say also there have been scars from previous Manchester United managers as well.

13:29I think I don't see too many players making the trip from Ajax to Manchester United anytime soon because of Eric Haag's tenure, for example. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? That is at your discretion. But sometimes a managerial reign can end so flat or dismally that it can have a knock-on effect for future players. Another example I would give you is, let's look at Enzo Maresca. Now, Enzo Maresca, to my mind, is a good football manager. He has the potential to be a very good football manager. But I do not imagine Maresca is going to appear on any shortlist Tottenham Hotspur have for a successor for Thomas Frank, because Tottenham Hotspur have hired Antonio Conte, former Chelsea, Jose Mourinho, former Chelsea, Villas-Boas, former Chelsea.

14:16They've had so many former Chelsea managers that somewhere on that shortlist for Maresca, there's probably a bullet point in there going, can we have another ex-Chelsea manager? Which is the weird merry-go-round of Premier League managerial hirings and firings. If I go back to you, Neil, here, when you go from caretaker to then having the job permanently, are you starting from a position of strength? Or are you starting with doubts about you already because you were the caretaker option? Yeah, it's a good point. From my experience, it became much, much, much harder, purely for the fact that now the expectation has changed.

15:00You know, I came off the back of, we had four games with three wins in a draw, and we'd been struggling all season. We'd had various different managers in. It sort of brought me in and sacked them. it ended up where I had this run of games four games, we won three, Drew won they gave me the job and then my next game was Cardiff City away which straight away seemed a lot harder because of what had gone on before all of a sudden now from not expecting to get a win you're now expecting to get a win and there's no difference in anything that's happened there's no change in the person that's in place there's no change in the players Did your psychology change?

15:41No, not really. And to be honest with you, as the game unfolded, I mean, it's easy for me to say now, but it was going in the same direction as the games prior that where we got points. But then, you know, in football, and that's the beauty of football, and that's why we all love it, they just managed to put three goals in the back of our net in the space of 15 minutes. And all of a sudden, it were a different kettle of fish. Within that then moment, people started viewing it differently. Don't go anywhere. More from Neil and Carl after the break. The Sports Agents The Sports Agents With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman Carl, if you try and look forward United have now got themselves in a situation here, haven't they?

16:31Whereby, if they keep Carrick If he has a fantastic season And then they make the decision And then on the opening day of next season they get a Brentford away or whatever and they lose immediately oh should have got Thomas Tuchel oh should have got Julian Nagels but that do you know what I mean yeah do you think that scenario is more likely than Michael Carrick staying till the end of the season doing really well then bringing in Thomas Tuchel Thomas Tuchel losing at Brentford on the opening day of next season I sense that the story then won't be oh well they should have kept Michael Carrick And that probably sums up the situation they've got themselves into.

17:10Yes, I think one of the problems about being a senior executive at Manchester United is, well, you've got to drown out the noise. This is the most written about football club in the world. And the situation you've just described there, Mark, is really interesting because no matter what happens, someone is going to complain. the only way to stop that complaint is to essentially win your matches so i'm pretty sure if michael carrick had got a draw against manchester city or if indeed kunya hadn't been in from 25 yards against arsenal and that game had finished through two there would have been a section of the fan base be it online be it in real life that would have gone should have got oligone social it's a really really difficult situation for jason walcooks and birelda to hire a new manager, if only because, to my mind, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Real Madrid, they'll also be looking for managers.

18:06And I'm sure there's two or three big clubs in Europe who are going, we're going to wait for the World Cup to finish before we start interviewing some of these managers who might be available. So if you mentioned Thomas Tuchel, I think Thomas Tuchel is going to get a lot of phone calls from a lot of football clubs this summer. And it's going to be really difficult for United to say you should be coming to us rather than say Real Madrid or rather than going back to Bayern Munich and that becomes this sort of helter-skelter big fight between everyone isn't it? We live in an era of stats don't we and Neil I mean there is a really interesting stat here Premier League era 21 caretaker managers became permanent and then only eight of them lasted a full season and only four of them had a better points per game record after becoming permanent.

18:56Yeah, exactly. And that's the case in point, I think, is that you set a manager on, he starts off, you win the first two, great, everything's going well, and then you go on a bad run. Now, is it the philosophy? Is it the manager? Is it the players? And then you get in that turmoil, trying to find an answer. And I think that looking back at Manchester United over the last few seasons, they've been in that turmoil. It's almost going around full circle all the time. it's the manager's fault, then it's the player's fault. And it's almost like a blame culture, if you like. And it's trying to get out of that blame culture.

19:32I mean, I'll tell you a story. This is a true story, this, right? I played in an FA Cup semi-final for Oldham Athletic against Manchester United. Went to 3-3, replayed Main Road. Played the game, scored 1-1. Nick Henry, it's a shot. It goes about that far over the line. It's a goal. It's the undershive side of the bar, comes down. And in the Manchester Evening News all week, that was a massive game for Alex Ferguson the FA Cup semi-final if they'd have lost to Oldham they were going to get the sack and that was the difference between Manchester United going on and achieving what they did and Alex Ferguson getting the sack and that is the nature of being a football manager That was the 1990 year wasn't it?

20:14That's the year yeah So it just shows you It does, it does and how much luck comes into it and people's careers are either built or lost depending on luck at times final question to you carl bearing in mind what you said about the summer coming up and clubs that are looking for managers if liverpool changed their manager then the summer and went with xavi alonso and united stuck with michael carrick do you think the reaction to the two appointments would be markedly different bearing in mind they were midfielders of a similar era in the Premier League and do you think that the reaction would be markedly different because Alonso has won a Bundesliga this one's hard because Xavier Alonso's playing history with Liverpool makes that I suppose it makes it quite a neat fit the former Liverpool player goes to Liverpool the former Manchester United manager player becomes confirmed as the Manchester United boss I mean you can imagine the Liverpool Manchester United game from next season if those two are instead in place.

21:19The very first question is, oh, is Xavi Alonso more tactically sophisticated than Michael Carrick? Because unfortunately, we still think the things that are imported to England are a little bit more exotic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I'm sure that'd be the conversation there as well. I think the post-World Cup managerial merry-go-round is going to be really interesting because to my mind, there are three coaches right now who are out of contract at the end of the season. So that's Glasner, Iriola and Marco Silva at Fulham. Thomas Tuchel's contract with England is going to expire at the end of the World Cup, but that could be renewed.

21:52I don't see Mauricio Potitino being the United States coach after this tournament. Carlo Ancelotti either wins the World Cup with Brazil and becomes a hero or has a glorious defeat and gets his contract renewed. So Ancelotti might be available. I think Nangelsmann at Germany, his situation is going to be really interesting. I'm sure Zidane Zidane would go, So please, for the love of God, Didier Deschamps, could you just retire now? So there's going to be a French, a highly regarded French midfielder who is available for someone. So that's eight managers, I think I've named there, all going around the place.

22:28And I suppose United want to make sure they've got someone that knows the club, in air quotes, knows the Manchester United way of playing, but also is going to be able to future-proof the club to play against some of these managers that are going to be going in and around. So if Thomas Tuchel ends up at a place that isn't Manchester United, the criteria for the new Manchester United manager, be it Carrick or be it someone else's, do you have a game plan for dealing with Thomas Tuchel? And I can't answer that question until next season. Do you think, Carl, at the moment, that the identity, the strong identity that Manchester United had has been gradually eroded away through different managers coming in?

23:06Listen, I've played against them. I've got beat seven at Old Trafford for Barnes it was one of the best footballing sides I've ever played against, but with a real strong identity. What is Manchester United's style of play? What is Manchester United's beliefs? What are they now? Neil, I'm going to slide you a fiver because I've just written a piece on you about this that's going to go out tomorrow. So you can read my answer to this on The Athletic tomorrow. Thank you very much for teaming up here. I think you're absolutely correct. I think you're absolutely correct in that the old methods of the Manchester United way or whatever defined the golden era under Sir Alex Ferguson, those had been eroded in the last decade we saw since.

23:45I think a really good example of this could be found in the academy. So Manchester United's academy was the envy of England, if not in Europe, for a very, very long time under Sir Alex Ferguson. Youth, courage, success, such an off-repeated club motto. It was on the back of a recent home shirt a couple of seasons ago. And I would say, I'd say maybe in 2018, Manchester United no longer had the best academy in England Manchester City had caught up Chelsea had caught up you were seeing the best young players in England play for places outside of Manchester United so United's academy is getting back to where closer to where it used to be I don't think the gap between them and the rest is ever going to be the same gap they had on the Sir Alex Ferguson now the Manchester United way to me is always quite difficult because well for one there's like four maybe even five fantastic teams under sir alex ferguson so i go well which one are we talking about the treble winning team or we're talking about 2008 team because they played in two very different ways and then you have one of the problem well one of the problems or one of the brilliant things about sir alex ferguson is he didn't like leaving notes because he was afraid of spies and he was afraid of leaks so when he leaves there wasn't necessarily a blueprint for his successor in the same way that anyone who walks into Barcelona, there is a clear blueprint as to how to play football.

25:05Anyone who walks into Ajax has a very, very clear blueprint, if only because those blueprints were written by Johan Cruyff and then codified and improved and iterated upon by Pep Guardiola. So we know for a fact, Johan Cruyff hated it if the right-back passed forwards to the right-winger. Hated it. Used to cancel training drills if someone did that. then when Pep Guardiola is the Barcelona manager he told off Dani Alves for doing this to which Dani Alves went do you know the person who I'm passing to his name is Lionel Messi but there are certain rules for the Barcelona way or the Ajax way that don't really exist in the Manchester United way and I think the Manchester United way or the Manchester United DNA is a little bit more intangible it's for me it's a little bit more I know it when I see it now for Michael Carrick to his credit these last two victories I've gone yep that there it is It's that.

25:52I don't know if that's been organised on a whiteboard, saying when this bit happens, you have to do this and you have to do this. But particularly the first goal they scored against City, that is a, to my mind, Manchester United goal. It is a very, very quick counter-attack. It is three players ahead of an attacking midfielder, and attacking midfielder Bruno Fernandes makes the right pass at the right time, and it's devastating. How do you coach that so that Manchester United can do that again and again and again, not just against the top teams but against the teams that want to sit deep and defend that's going to be the next challenge for Carrick if he wants to become the permanent manager going forward Seems a good place to leave that I mean the good thing is it's unlikely that this topic will come up again before August Neil, Carl, thank you very much for joining us Thank you I'll see you soon

26:52that's it thanks to neil and carl any thoughts on all of that please do get in touch the email the sports agents at global.com you can find us on social media or you can use the link in the show notes all of our past episodes are available on youtube global player or wherever you get your pods and please subscribe or follow and leave a review thanks for listening the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman

27:20This has been a Global Player original production.