Lukaku: Carr will be driving force as coach

JOSE Mourinho’s decision to transfer Michael Carrick to his coaching staff has already paid off, according to Romelu Lukaku.

The midfielder retired at the end of the season and spent the last few weeks of the campaign on the bench as a coach rather than a player – and it is already having an impact on his former team-mates.

Lukaku credits the former England international for improving his game with the advice he has given him since January.

“Michael – first of all, I want to say a big thank-you for what you’ve done for me since January,” Lukaku told MUTV.

“Not a lot of people will know that now we do video sessions after every single game to prepare for the next game.

“Sometimes you think those video sessions don’t help me going forward. But they do because I became a better player and I became a better version of myself.”

Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford are just a few of Lukaku’s team-mates who have praised Carrick’s influence and the Belgium international has explained what the 36-year-old has done on the training pitch to help him.

In his message addressed to the former United midfielder, Lukaku continued: “I think it also starts in training when we do the extra bits and the extra exercises to become a better player. Your eye for detail really helped me a lot more. I’ve had a lot of mentors in my young career and you’re certainly one of them.

“I hope you can continue this process next season. It will be a joy to work with you in the staff next season. Hopefully, I can improve on the bits and pieces that you want me to improve on.

“Good luck after your career and I hope to see you in pre-season so we can start a new chapter in the work that we do.“

Carrick is one of three changes Mourinho has made to his coaching staff ahead of the new season.

Former assistant manager Rui Faria has left the club and Carrick, Under-18s coach Kieran McKenna and Stefano Rapetti form the team that replaces him.

Mourinho believes Carrick will eventually become his right-hand man, saying: “The particular reason I think it will be Michael Carrick in the future [who is assistant manager] when he has his badges, when he has his pro licence, when he makes the bridge between a player to an assistant.

“Because people think it’s just like one day I’m a player and the next day I’m a coach, it’s not like that. The brain can be ready for that but then you need the practice, the decision-making, the controlling of the ship, the work in groups.”