Tactically, I start with the number: 5 minutes 27 seconds. That is the length of Michael Carrick’s monologue on Friday, at the start of his press conference. Nobody had asked him a question. He talked anyway. I got my phone out, started the stopwatch and ran through last Sunday’s team talk in my kitchen. Two minutes ten. And that was with the club delegate interrupting me about the cards.
I know the context, even at a different scale. United have won just two of their 11 games and sit 13th in the Premier League. On Wednesday, after the 4-1 defeat at Como in the Champions League, Bruno Fernandes questioned his tactical choices. A week earlier, Lisandro Martínez had criticised Jason Wilcox, the director of football, over recruitment. Carrick, 45, did not rule out putting his captain on the bench or taking the armband off him for the home game against Bournemouth on Sunday.
In his 5 minutes 27, he went through the club’s values: “humility”, “resilience” and “earning the right to win”. He held up Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney and Sir Alex Ferguson as people who put the club before themselves. I give the same speech, with the previous gaffer gone fishing as my example. It works less well.
And then there is the umbrella. He said he would hold it so that he gets wet and everyone else stays dry. “That’s the position I’m in, and it’s a privileged position,” he added, according to The Guardian. I run that on Sundays. When it’s pouring on pitch 2, I’m the one holding the towel over the bench. When we’ve got eleven on the bench, that is, which never happens.
He says he is 100% sure he can turn the season around and that the team is not divided: “We just need to get back to doing what we do best, and we will.” He has talked it over with the board and the players. I wrote the line down in my folder. On Sunday I read it to my dressing room. In under 5 minutes 27, promise.
It’s true, we checked: The Guardian.
