by Even by modern football standards, Wayne Rooney’s sacking at Birmingham City after 83 days as manager was brutal, but it did not surprise his former team-mate Michael Carrick.
Rooney’s debut came when Birmingham came against Carrick’s Middlesbrough back in October, but the former England captain’s time ended just 14 games later, after a run of just two wins and nine defeats.
Naturally, Carrick has sympathy for his friend, but he learned long before he took his first job at Middlesbrough not to be surprised by anything that happens to football managers.
He insists it is too early to write Rooney off and that the rush to make young managers succeed or fail is misplaced.
Rooney is the latest in a series of high-profile former players from England’s ‘Golden Generation’ to find that their reputation as a player is, as Carrick puts it, “irrelevant” to management.
It could be argued that Frank Lampard has had more chances as a manager than he deserved in the dugout, with spells in charge of Derby County, Chelsea and Everton.
Gary Neville’s managerial career lasted four months at Valencia in Spain. Steven Gerrard is already under huge pressure from Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq to join Aston Villa in 2022, albeit after a successful term in Scotland with Rangers. Looking further back, Alan Shearer only spent a few months as manager of Newcastle United and did not return to coaching when he failed to save them from relegation in 2009.
“We’re so quick to judge that it hasn’t worked out,” Carrick said. “Some of the guys are in their early 40s, they’ve got so much ahead of them.
“There are so many good managers, who are a bit older, who have had different difficulties in their time. It is as dangerous to say that someone is successful as it is to write someone off. Good people will end up rising to the top.
“It’s not for me to say whether 15 games is enough time. I am deeply disappointed in Wayne as a friend. I know he’ll bounce back and I know he’ll succeed – he’s too good, too knowledgeable and too experienced not to use that in the right way.
“I don’t think it surprises you. It’s just assumed that’s how the game works now.
“The game is getting tougher when it comes to judging what’s successful and what’s not good enough.”
Carrick has spent more than a year on Teesside, working for one of the most patient owners in English football in Steve Gibson and has guided Middlesbrough, who are four points off the Championship play-off places, into the Carabao semi-finals. Cup.
On Saturday Boro will host Aston Villa in the third round of the FA Cup. Carrick impressed people at the Riverside, showing in management the same calm and collected persona he had when he was a player with West Ham, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.
After serving on the coaching staff at Old Trafford under Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and being named caretaker manager when both were sacked, Carrick took his time in his first full-time managerial job.
Despite winning 34 caps for England and countless trophies with United, Carrick is adamant that nothing he achieved as a player compares to what he does now.
“It’s a different thing, a different role,” he explained. “Just because you’ve played doesn’t mean management will suit you or you’ll be good at it. It’s two very different roles.
“Experience [as a player] help because you are surrounded by certain situations and you have been through. But the seat I’m in now, it’s so different to being a player. You need completely different skills and approach.
“Just because you were a great player, over time, it becomes irrelevant. It has no influence on what I do now and the group of players I have here.
“I understand why people think they won’t be bothered by management, but there are so many great players who have been incredible managers and there are incredible managers who will say they were nowhere near a great player and vice versa. It’s not black and white.”
Asked if his Boro players are impressed with his playing CV, Carrick joked that “some of them don’t even remember me as a player”. But he made it clear that none of that applies to him anymore.
“It depends, at the beginning [of your managerial career) there is a freshness there,” he added. “Probably when I first got here, because I was fresh from playing and it was my first role, I would have been best known for what I did as a player.
“But I like to think, the longer I am here, the longer the boys know me and we work together, that this becomes irrelevant. It’s about what we can do together. I don’t want to be Michael Carrick the ex-player, I want to be Michael Carrick the manager.”
He has already lasted longer than some, but in the end he will be expected to win promotion to the Premier League, just like virtually every other Championship manager where the average time in the job is less than two years.
Fail at Middlesbrough, even though it is his first managerial role, and Carrick is likely to have drop even lower down the football ladder to get another chance. That is the nature of the beast and he knows it.
“History shows that there have been some incredible managers that at certain points, it hasn’t quite gone to plan,” Carrick said. “They’ve had a setback.
“It’s part of life, really. It was certainly part of my playing career, the ups and downs. Some people remember you for the good days – there are plenty of days not so good in there as well, and it’s the same in this role now.
“You can go and have a really good spell and everything’s great, and then a few results and questions and doubts. That’s the nature of what we’re involved in and I accept that.”
