Michael Carrick is doing all he can to get the permanent Man Utd manager job, but he’s finding supportive arguments from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and what’s happening in Germany.
Winning games cures everything, and Michael Carrick has done a great job of it so far, which already strengthens his case at Old Trafford.
However, a couple of factors continue to work against him regardless of how many games he wins or how he wins them.
To beat those factors, one only needs to look at Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s case, as well as what’s happening in the Bundesliga this season.
Michael Carrick could be Man Utd’s Vincent Kompany
Before going into Solskjaer’s effect, it is worth noting something more recent, which is Vincent Kompany’s story at Bayern Munich, because it correlates directly to Carrick.
Kompany was way down the pecking order when Bayern were shopping for a new manager, and his CV of relegating Burnley from the Premier League with a whimper didn’t exactly scream “marquee”.
However, what he had was an understanding of how to make the players tick, a style of play that translated better with better players, and the big-name pedigree to command respect in the dressing room.
It’s why he bossed the Championship with Burnley when he had much better players, struggled in the Premier League, and is now writing record books with Bayern.
The journey is reminiscent of Carrick’s time with Middlesbrough, where he made an immediate impact, but continuously seeing his squad get weakened in the market saw him fail.
Carrick’s style of play is also something that will translate better with better players, as seen already. He has the same man-management skills, and his former player pedigree helps him deal with the pressure.
Manager success is not completely transposable from club to club. Some managers are built to manage big players, while others are skilled at maximising a limited squad.
Carrick could be United’s version of Kompany.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s journey mirrored Carrick’s
Until this point, the comparisons to Solskjaer have unfairly been made to score points against Carrick, when the Norwegian is arguably the most successful manager of the club post-Sir Alex Ferguson.
Yes, he didn’t win a trophy, but Erik ten Hag did, and nobody thinks he was successful when he guided United to eighth in the league.
United played brilliant football and went toe-to-toe with two of the best teams ever – Pep Guardiola’s peak Man City and Jurgen Klopp’s peak Liverpool.
He did all that despite his prior English managerial experience with Cardiff, where he eventually got relegated.
The gist of the argument is that Solskjaer’s troubles with Cardiff weren’t an indicator of his managerial ability, because each job is wildly different and requires a different set of skills.
Some managers do well with limited resources and don’t know how to play proactive football, and others struggle with vice versa.
Carrick is more like Kompany and Solskjaer than someone like Thomas Frank, and that is the biggest argument in his favour.
from United In Focus https://ift.tt/SN9Y7ic