Manchester United will welcome Michael Carrick and his coaching staff to Carrington this week.
The former England midfielder and long-serving Manchester United anchor has only one senior coaching role on his CV prior to his Old Trafford appointment, but left an impression at the Riverside Stadium during his three seasons in charge of Middlesbrough.
Carrick returns to Manchester with experience as an assistant under Ole Gunnar Solskjær, as well as academy coaching credentials and two promotion pushes with Boro.
Michael Carrick's coaching credentials assessed ahead of Manchester United unveiling
FourFourTwo sought the help of Northern Echo journalist Dom Shaw for the lowdown on Carrick's stint in the north-east, and what Manchester United fans can expect from their new man in charge.
"Michael Carrick's first season at Middlesbrough was brilliant and they should have won promotion; the second about par and the third a disappointment," Shaw summarises. "The football on display in that first season, after he replaced Chris Wilder, was as good as Boro fans have seen in a long time. But come his final campaign, Boro were too often ponderous and predictable and their poor game management cost them again and again."
Middlesbrough finished fourth in the Championship table following Carrick's October 2022 arrival, experiencing a significant upturn in results. The team were lifted from the relegation places to the play-offs by the end of his first campaign, although they were ultimately beaten in the play-off semi-finals by Coventry City.
Middlesbrough's Chuba Akpom finished the season as the division's top scorer with 29 goals and Shaw credits Carrick's influence for how the player blossomed on Teesside.
"In his first season, he transformed Akpom from a flop of a signing into the Championship's best player after moving him to No.10, where he'd never previously played.
"Emmanuel Latte Lath joined Boro for £4m and left for more than £20m eighteen months later.
"Morgan Rogers is full of praise for Carrick. He signed for Boro for £1m in the summer of 2023 and left in a deal worth £16m just six months later. He's done OK for himself since," Shaw adds.
Boro finished Carrick's second season just outside the play-offs after a dismal start to the campaign, which they managed to turn around. The club challenged for the play-offs throughout the second half of the season, but ultimately ran out of steam.
In his third year, Shaw believes Middlesbrough regressed to an extent and that a change was inevitable come the end of the season.
"The aim was promotion and Boro finished 10th and it felt like the time was right for a fresh face and a change in the summer.
"Losing Aaron Danks from his staff was a big blow when the coach left to join Vincent Kompany's backroom team at Bayern Munich in the summer of 2024. In truth, Boro never looked like the promotion contenders they should have been in the season that followed."
Carrick's brief is to ensure Manchester United finish as strongly as possible considering they are now left competing on only one front for the remainder of the campaign.
Whether he is able to influence and invigorate individual members of Manchester United's squad as he appears to have done at Middlesbrough remains to be seen, but it is encouraging from a supporters' perspective that he has helped develop household names such as Rogers.
