I’LL KEEP THE HOTSEAT WARM
Carrick fills void but in dark over next step
5.45PM, BT SPORT
MICHAEL CARRICK admits he has been given no indication how long he will be in charge of the first team, insisting it could be one game, two or possibly longer.
The former United midfielder and then assistant coach under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will take the reins for tonight’s Group F Champions League encounter against Villarreal.
A victory will be enough to put United in the knockout stages next year. But whether Carrick will still be at the club by then or even by the weekend has not been explained to him. He is in the dark.
Despite talks with Ed Woodward about stepping in, a clear plan to pull United from the grip of chaos remains conspicuous by its absence.
“Whether it’s one game or two games, whether it’s a little longer than that, right now I’m not too sure,” said Carrick. “But however long the club want me to be here, I’ll do my best.
“Whatever results we get – hopefully we get good ones and we should get good ones I truly believe that – we’ll wait and see what happens after that.”
Carrick’s remit is to keep the dugout warm, perhaps for an interim boss installed until the end of the season, or maybe for a permanent successor if a candidate can be persuaded to jump ship now. Whatever the outcome, such uncertainty is hardly the clear direction Manchester United so desperately need after the decision was finally made to dispense with Solskjaer.
Perhaps as worryingly, the message put to the players and the tactics on the field appear likely to be little changed from the methodology employed by the Norwegian.
“Obviously I’ve worked closely with Ole for a long time now and we do have very similar beliefs,” said Carrick. “We did as players and we certainly do as coaches and manager.
“I’ve got my own personality that’s different to Ole, but of course it’s very similar, that’s why we worked together for so long and it went so well for a period of time.
“I’m not giving too much away of what my plans are but I’m very clear in my own mind what we want to do, how we want to play, how we want to go about it and I’m looking forward to seeing that on the pitch.”
Carrick will continue to work with Mike Phelan, right, and Kieran McKenna and the trio could have a task on their hands to turn things round given some players were said to feel that coaching was part of the problem.
But Carrick defended not only the character of the dressing room but insisted players who failed Solskjaer are capable of turning things around, starting tonight. “I’ve got great people helping me and working with me and this is a great group of players,” he said. “I know it’s not been what we wanted it to be of late, but it’s a fantastic group of players. They’ve proved that
before and they’ll go on and prove it again. But the biggest thing for the fans, for everyone, is the result.
“I could sit here and say all sorts of things and I would be speaking the truth about the training and the players, how much they really want to do well for this club. “But in all honesty, right now I don’t think that counts for much. It’s about what happens now in the next game, over the next few days, getting the right results and how we perform on the pitch.
“How we go about our business, how we carry ourselves and how we behave.”