Manchester United have a lot of reasons to thank Sir Alex Ferguson and when the January transfer window rolls round they will discover yet another one.
Ferguson influenced the careers of hundreds of people, players and coaches and his network remains extensive. The 80-year-old still has an influence at United and keeps in touch with many people in the game. Michael Carrick is just one of them.
“I’ve spoken to him a lot,” Carrick said last month. “It’s well documented that he takes real pride in ex-players progressing into coaches or managers and takes pride in helping them as well. He’s certainly done that for me and I really appreciate the advice he’s given me.”
That advice is likely to be extremely helpful to Carrick, who is embarking upon his first role in management at Middlesbrough. The former United midfielder is only four games into his spell at Boro, but things are going well.
After suffering defeat in his first match against Preston, the 41-year-old has gone unbeaten in the next three, beating Hull City and Blackpool and drawing with Bristol City. Boro have moved up from 21st in the Championship to 16th and appear to be upwardly mobile.
While United will undoubtedly be happy for Carrick, who played 464 times for the club before developing as a coach under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, they will also be acutely aware that their former player’s continued success can be beneficial to them too.
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It won’t be one of the main things currently on Erik ten Hag’s mind, but having a friendly face in charge of a Championship club is of great strategic use. United have a large stable of players and the opportunity to loan out promising youngsters or unhappy fringe players to somewhere they can keep an eye on them is a good opportunity. It is one they could take advantage of in January.
“It depends who is expensive or not, they might give me a couple of cheap deals,” Carrick said recently when asked whether he might use his United connections to bring in players.
“That’s part of football isn’t it? Who you know and building relationships and trust. Hopefully we’ll take good players, whether it’s to sign them or on loan and they’re going to trust us looking after their players and players are going to want to come here and play because they see us doing things a certain way.
“We want players to be here because they’re excited and they’re here for the right reasons. That’s the work that we’re going to get to in the coming weeks and it’s something to look forward to.”
So who might fit the bill for Boro? United already have a handful of players out on loan – Dean Henderson (Nottingham Forest), Amad (Sunderland), Alex Telles (Sevilla), Eric Bailly (Marseille) – but there are plenty of other candidates left.
Young players in need of minutes like Brandon Williams, Axel Tuanzebe and Facundo Pellistri were injured in the summer so missed out on loan moves, but are ripe for them in January, given they have not been involved under Ten Hag this season.
Williams spent last season on loan with Norwich, while Tuanzebe was with Aston Villa and Napoli. Pellistri has been loaned to Alaves twice since his arrival from Uruguay in October 2020 and is yet to make a senior appearance for United. He is reportedly desperate to leave United permanently in January – but if the club want to keep him then Boro could be a good option.
Teden Mengi is another young United defender, who has previously been on loan with Derby and Birmingham in the Championship. Shola Shoretire is another possibility. Having broken through in the second half of the 2020/21 season, he has fallen behind Alejandro Garnacho at United this campaign.
Hannibal Mejbri is currently playing for Birmingham and his trajectory shows just how important playing regular senior football at a good level can be. United may be able to use their Carrick connection to kickstart the careers of their talented youngsters.
