"I'm convinced" - Middlesbrough FC: Michael Carrick future debated amid West Ham call | OneFootball

We asked our Middlesbrough fan pundit about whether he was concerned that Michael Carrick may depart for West Ham

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Michael Carrick has been tipped to stay at Middlesbrough for the foreseeable future amid recent speculation linking him with the West Ham United job.

Tony Cascarino told talkSPORT that he believes Carrick is "an obvious candidate" for the West Ham job with the side from East London currently struggling in the lower echelons of the Premier League table under Julen Lopetegui.

The Hammers are currently 14th, winning just three of their 14 games this season, and plenty of the Hammers faithful aren't convinced by the Spaniard so far.

Carrick, who spent five years at West Ham as a player, has got Boro performing well in recent weeks, and a run of positive results has seen them move up to fifth place and into the play-off places.

Middlesbrough fan pundit not worried about Michael Carrick's future

Given Cascarino's suggestion on talkSPORT, we asked our Boro fan pundit, Jasper Hudson, whether he is concerned about the possibility of Carrick departing for West Ham, and believes that he wouldn't leave during the season.

Speaking to Football League World, Jasper said: "I’m not concerned about Carrick leaving, particularly not during the season, but the summer might be a different prospect.

"Right now I’m convinced he’s happy where he is, and he’s going to stay. The rumour has come because West Ham are struggling and Carrick is currently the name in the Championship following our last three games, but before that he definitely wasn’t the pick of the managers, we’d won one from five, lost to Bristol City, lost to Watford, so yes, we’ve had some good results and what Carrick has built is showing, but there was very little talk of him.

"We’ve beaten QPR, who are struggling, Luton, who are struggling, and Oxford United, who are newly promoted and have struggled of late, so I’m not particularly concerned.

"Michael Carrick is a top manager, but I think he’s realised that you don’t want to make the same mistakes and jump to a job too early, and it has to be the right job and the right setup, because it’s easy for managers to fail.

"Plenty of good managers, like Graham Potter at Chelsea after his success at Brighton (experienced this) and he (Carrick) is a good young manager who has learned from the mistakes of others that you have to be at the right place at the right time with the right setup and I don’t think West Ham have that at the moment and I think he’d be better staying at least a season at Boro.

"There’s obviously a chance we could go up as well, and if he could take this team up to the Prem, then that’s as good as him jumping ship to West Ham right now if he was able to build his project to the Premier League with the players and his playstyle. I think that would be much better for the long-term than just switching to be in the Premier League.

"He has a long managerial career ahead of him, and he’ll spend plenty of time in the Premier League and at big clubs, and he has to prioritise what’s right for now and I think he’s aware of that, so I’m not particularly worried."

Michael Carrick could lead Middlesbrough to the Premier League this season

Should Carrick just ship for a Premier League club, it would be a risky move and one that might not may off, as we've seen in the past.

Given their recent form, nobody would be surprised if Boro were in the promotion mix, or the play-off mix at the very least at the end of the season, and as Jasper alluded to, getting promoted with Boro could well be a better way to become a Premier League manager than joining a side already there.

Boro's recent run of form has made people sit-up and take notice of them, and if they continue to play like this then Carrick could well attract interest from elsewhere, but you feel as if it's in his best interests to stay at the Riverside Stadium and continue the project that he's building.

There's no doubt that the 43-year-old is one of the brightest young managers in English football, but a move too early to the Premier League runs the risk of damaging his reputation, and staying at Middlesbrough with an exciting project is probably his best bet at this stage.