www.unibet.co.uk/blog/football/premier-league/thank-you-for-the-memories-michael-carrick-manchester-uniteds-underrated-midfield-linchpin-1.1026154The Geordie says farewell to his playing days at Old Trafford this weekend
WHEN I asked Michael Carrick: What does it feel like to walk out at Old Trafford every week? On United’s pre-season tour in the bowels of a football stadium in Osaka in 2013, his reply was instant.
“It’s a dream,” he replied. “Every time I walk out, I try to appreciate how lucky I am to play in front of 76,000 so often. It’s a wonderful feeling.”
He’ll do it for a final time at Old Trafford on Sunday, when Manchester United complete their league season on Sunday against a Watford team they put four goals past in one of the most entertaining matches of this season in late November. Even by that early stage, United fans knew winning the league was unlikely.
Carrick will be in the starting line-up for his farewell as a professional footballer and will deserve all the applause that come his way after 676 games in club football, 463 of them with United. It’s a chance for fans to sing ‘It’s hard to believe it’s not Scholes, it’s Carrick don’t you know’ as they see him in a red shirt for the last time before he’s substituted.
Carrick has barely featured this season but then he didn’t expect to be kept on in 2016 – especially if Louis van Gaal stayed at the helm. But Van Gaal was the one to go. And Carrick had doubts a year ago before being offered another contract extension, but he stayed and enjoyed the appreciation from United fans who were long divided about his effectiveness as a player, in part because he was so different to the central midfielders preceding him. Carrick didn’t fly into tackles or scream like Roy Keane.
“People compared me with Roy all the time,” he told me. “It was amusing at times because I’m nothing like him and I was never going to be like him. We’re two completely different players. I was never going to be a replacement for Roy Keane.”
Nor did he score, control the pace of the game or hit wonder passes like Paul Scholes. But he was an elegant player who, in the words of Patrice Evra “could kill two lines of players with one pass forward”.
While Sir Alex Ferguson could see that, England couldn’t. Carrick would have improved any England midfield this decade.
Carrick will stay around and work for Jose Mourinho as a coach. Good. He’s respected figure among players and fans, a thinker with a grounding from his Geordie roots and a good sense of humour.
“Rio is always up to something,” he once said of the worst United’s pranksters. “Ando (Anderson) and Patrice too. You have to be careful when they are about. You might be about to leave training, but someone has your car keys. Everyone is laughing at you, you get annoyed and that makes them laugh even more.”
Those three might have been adept at winding Carrick up, but they all held Carrick in high esteem– even if Anderson called him ‘Carricky’.
I interviewed him several other times over the years.
“I don’t think I’ll be a manager,” he said three years ago when asked about his future. “I’d like to stay in the game and give something back, whether that’s working with younger players or not I can’t say.”
He did work with younger players last season, so he’s got a good idea of the talent coming through the ranks. He’s popular with staff, too. If he plays his role right, he can be a conduit between the players and Jose Mourinho, a trusted foil. That person is missing, and the players can get frustrated with their manager calling them out in public or his confrontational style.
Brian Kidd was good in that role under Sir Alex Ferguson, Mike Phelan too, someone who can have the ear and trust of both the players and the manager.
For now, it’s right to look back at some of Carrick’s great moments in red. There are not hundreds to choose from because he was a match influencer rather than a match winner. His performance in a 4-2 win against Manchester City in Van Gaal's first season was one of his best, as was his role in the 7-1 victory over Roma. But it’s the goals which stand out.
“If you wanted to ask me for my best goal, I’d probably say Wigan in 2009,” he said. “It was massive at the time. We were 1-0 down with not long to go and then Tevez scored and then I scored in the last minute. We drew against Arsenal at home the week after, so it was a big goal.
“I scored it in front of our mob too – it was always a big one at Wigan. I remember Wazza jumping right up onto my shoulders and falling off because I couldn’t hold him.”
Asked why he didn’t score more, he told me: “Look, everyone wants to score more goals, but there comes a point – especially in my 30s – that my position on the pitch doesn’t really allow me to get forward too much.
“When I do play I’m generally stopping counter attacks. I play deep in a three-man midfield or even if I play as a two, whoever tends to be with me tends to be the one that goes forward a little bit, be it Paul, Ander or Felli. I organise and try to stop the counter attack.”
But let’s wind back ten years, to a night in Moscow and a crucial penalty in the Champions League final shootout. Carrick stood up when asked, others didn’t.
“I was shitting myself,” he said. “In the back of my mind you can't help thinking of what life will be like if you miss. Winning the European Cup was the best feeling I’ve ever had in football.”
An emotion shared by millions of United fans. For that, and for everything else, thank you, Michael.
