We’re in the midst of what the kids call “spooky season” – or, for our fellow fusty old-timers out there, “autumn”. If you’ve been cosying up with a few horror flicks this month, you’ll know nothing good can come from hanging around a lake at this time of year. And so it proved for Manchester United, who endured an early Halloween nightmare on the banks of Lake Como that may have driven a stake through the Michael Carrick era.
Hailed as the interim anti-Amorim not so long ago, Carrick has overseen two wins this season, against Ipswich and Sabah Baku. Como were in Serie D when Carrick won Big Cup with United as a player in 2008 – now, 18 years on, he watched the Italian upstarts dance, twirl and shimmy through the set of training cones he had sent out to represent his storied club. In the dugout, Carrick appeared frozen by fear.
If there had been a sofa perched on the touchline, he may well have crouched behind it to avoid the series of jump-scares served up by his players. At the end, he walked over to the three United fans who had stuck around and held up his hands, looking like a cross between Ole Gunnar Solskjær and a doomed Squid Game contestant. But somehow, things were about to get worse.
A week after Lisandro Martínez had taken aim at (or, in truth, just below) United’s hapless hierarchy, Bruno Fernandes decided to swing a little lower. Asked about his side’s tactics, Fernandes said it was “on the manager and staff to see”, before offering a surprisingly detailed dissection of Carrick’s pressing techniques. Now 32, perhaps Fernandes is eyeing the lucrative podcast market, where former United players are busy making hay by stating the obvious.
Perhaps he’s just full of it. Carrick fired back with a maxim that works for horror-movie protagonists and lazy footballers alike: “If you don’t run, you ain’t going to win.” In truth, Manchester United’s entire post-Ferguson era feels like a worn-out horror franchise, a repetitive cycle of diminishing returns that has churned through managerial victims, while still finding new ways of scraping the barrel. United fans might have dared to dream that City’s guilty verdict marked the end of the nightmare; instead, a new team of FFP-baiting waifs in shiny blue shirts have appeared, also led by a crafty Catalan.
Carrick might not make it past United’s trip to Stamford Bridge on Halloween, but could Cesc Fàbregas replace him? Asked before the game, the Como head coach snapped back: “I don’t think that shows enough respect to a great footballer and manager like Michael Carrick, at the helm of a wonderful Manchester United side.” Tone it down a bit, Cesc, it’s giving sarcastic. Fabregas is on the bookies’ speculative longlist to replace Carrick, but it’s hard to fathom why he would take the job.
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