Houston: Michael Carrick shakes his head, unable to identify with those players and clubs who equate a top-four finish with winning silverware. It may be four years and counting since Manchester United last laid hands on the Premier League trophy, but for the club’s new captain, the notion that anything less than first place is acceptable offends his sense of thinking. “It’s all about winning things,” Carrick explains matter-of-factly.
“In some ways, it’s winning the league or nothing. It’s another one gone by if you haven’t won it. That’s the way I see it. I can’t get my head around that — to say top four is acceptable. I know we’ve had changes and adjusted as players have come in and out and you can’t expect to win the league every year, but you’ve got to set out to do that.
“As I said, it’s pretty much win the league or nothing for me. I was obviously fortunate enough to win the league straight away and, having that run we did in my first three years, gives you that taste of ‘Right, it’s all or nothing now’, so maybe I was spoiled in my early years. But it’s greed in a way — that drive to win more and more, that’s not something that you lose.” Given that United have finished in the top four only once in the past four seasons and trailed champions Chelsea by 24 points last term, that is quite a statement from Carrick. But the club might not have run into so many problems in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson landscape had more players shared the veteran midfielder’s fierce will to win.
Carrick is not the shouty sort but Jose Mourinho recognises a serial winner when he sees one and had no hesitation handing the captaincy to a man who will turn 36 a week from now when Wayne Rooney left for Everton.
Carrick inherited Roy Keane’s No.16 shirt at Old Trafford and now the armband the Irishman wore with a near demonic zeal for almost a decade but not all are snarling types.
Rio Ferdinand once recalled Keane tearing into him in his first training session as a United player for taking the safe and easy option of passing the ball sideways. “I’m not going to bite someone’s head off, well, not unless it’s something really bad...,” Carrick says, but it is clear falling standards irk him just as much as they did Keane.
After re-signing for Everton last week, Rooney claimed that it had become “more difficult over the last few years” for him and Carrick to maintain those standards “with some of the players who joined the club”.
Now the last surviving member of the squad that won the Champions League and league title in the 2007-2008 season, Carrick does not disagree.
“That’s fair comment from Wayne,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’ve got to change the mentality of the players, I just think the way we’ve been over the last few years, there’s been a lot of change at the club and, when that happens, sometimes it takes a lot of time for people to find their feet and adjust. And yeah there have been times in the league when standards have dropped — there’s no hiding from that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get back there again if you keep doing the right things.”
Carrick says there are good players who have been consumed by the pressure and expectation of playing for United. “I think it has done over the years, we can all see that, there are big players who come here and, for whatever reason, it hasn’t worked for them,” he said.
“They haven’t been able to deal with it. There is a certain level of expectation, standards and scrutiny you probably don’t get elsewhere.”
As the conversation turns to Mourinho and next season, though, it is clear there is confidence that a corner is being turned, a mentality being reforged after the sense of drift under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, who, incredibly, was ready to jettison Carrick before he was sacked as manager.
For all their struggles in the Premier League, United have won three leading trophies in the past two seasons — the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League — and Carrick hopes the younger members of the squad are starting to develop the same unquenchable thirst for silverware he has as they aim to take the next step and reclaim the title.
“I know we haven’t done great in the league but we’ve still managed to win things over the last couple of years, which I think is important,” he said.
“I said after the FA Cup win last year, for this new squad, to get that winning feeling is important. You can’t underestimate how important that can be. We managed to build on that last season and we won again.
“There was a stage midway through the season — it was different towards the end because priorities had shifted to the Europa League — where we felt we should have been right in there challenging for the league title. Our away form was brilliant and our home form, performance-wise, was actually really good for large spells, but we just couldn’t find the wins. We were hammering the door down on teams but just couldn’t find the goals.
“So, our home form needs to improve results-wise. And we need to score more goals, of course. In the end it looked like we were a fair distance away, but there was a part of the season when we felt we should have been in there challenging. It maybe sounds crazy to say but I don’t think the gap was as big as it ended up being. But at the same time, there’s a lot of points there for us to make up.
“Everywhere Jose has been, he’s won. He’s done it in different ways, his sides have played different styles, but he’s always found a way to win.
“Even like last year, when we weren’t at our best for parts of the season, we found a way to win trophies. That’s the biggest thing I can say about him, he’s a winner and his desire and his drive to win rubs off on everyone.”
