What Gary Neville said on Michael Carrick’s future as a manager as Middlesbrough pressure rises | OneFootball

Under growing pressure at Middlesbrough, it may be time for a look back at what Gary Neville had to say about Michael Carrick's coaching prospects.

With inconsistent results and frustrating performances, Michael Carrick’s future as Middlesbrough boss would appear to be in doubt as the Smoggies struggle to break back into the top six and the play-off places in the Championship.

As Carrick faces possibly the harshest couple of games as a manager in his still young career during the remainder of this season, it may be worth him remembering what had made him such a highly-rated young coach.

One of his former teammates, Gary Neville, was keen to lavish praise on him back in January 2024 as Middlesbrough travelled down to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea in the second-leg of their EFL Cup semi-final tie.

Leading 1-0 from the first-leg after an impressive and resilient performance against the Blues up in Teesside, the former Manchester United right-back said that he thinks Carrick ‘can have a very long career in coaching’ citing several key traits that he believed would help him to do so.

Neville’s praise for Carrick

Neville, who mentioned the fact that the last time he’d spoken to Carrick was after the former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder had led United to a good point as interim boss against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, reflected on Carrick’s characteristics from his playing days and why he believed he would go on to be a good coach.

He said: “When I look back now at Michael, he was very measured, very thoughtful and considered. Players will like him and trust him. He’s a great lad in the sense that players will definitely bond with him.”

"His character and personality in that regard is something that Neville continued to discuss, mentioning how his career as a player will have helped him pick up coaching ideas for the future.

“He’s a sponge, Michael, he’ll have picked up a lot of information in his career. He’ll have written it down and he’ll be passing that over and getting his team playing well on the pitch.”

Now, as he heads into two crucial matches to see of ‘Boro can somehow squeeze past the likes of Bristol City and Coventry City into the top six, Carrick is under a fair bit of pressure for his job at the Riverside Stadium.

Middlesbrough’s frustration under Carrick

When he first arrived on Teesside for his first full-time managerial job after being the interim coach of United for a short spell previously, Carrick enjoyed an extremely impressive time of it as they rose from the bottom three and the relegation places to automatic promotion contenders with eight games of the campaign to go.

They faded towards the end of that season due to two victories in eight games before then losing to eventual play-off final runners’ up Coventry City in the semi-finals but it had remained a positive start.

Carrick and his ‘Boro side then had to deal with the loss of several key players over the summer such as Chuba Akpom, sold to Ajax, and loanees Zack Steffen, Ryan Giles, Aaron Ramsey and Cameron Archer.

They ended up finishing four points outside of the top six last season due largely in part to an incredibly slow start whereby they collected just two points from their opening seven matches.

This season has been inconsistent throughout but a five-match losing streak earlier this year saw them tumble from the play-off places to the bottom-half of the table and they have been trying to fight back up the table ever since.

Their third defeat in their last four matches came on Easter Monday as they suffered a 2-1 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, in a game in which they had the lead but also saw Tommy Conway miss a penalty as well as miss a glorious opportunity towards the end of the game.

They begin the 45th match day of the campaign sitting seventh in the table and three points off the play-off spots as they host Jack Wilshere’s Norwich City this weekend, before a potential winner-takes-all clash with Frank Lampard’s Coventry City on the final day of the season.