Jose Mourinho has aimed a bizarre dig at Michael Carrick following his Manchester United appointment despite showing clear faith in 2018.
Michael Carrick faces a daunting challenge as he takes charge of Manchester United for the remaining 16 fixtures of the season.
His return to the club could hardly have started better. A 2-0 dismantling of Manchester City last weekend lifted spirits around Old Trafford, with optimism growing and confidence restored. However, the objectives for the campaign are still very much unfinished.
United have tasked the 44-year-old with steering the club into next season’s Champions League. That would likely require a top-four finish in the Premier League, or potentially fifth place should English sides enjoy strong runs across the three UEFA competitions.
While Carrick focuses on pushing United back into Europe’s elite, the club are simultaneously laying the groundwork for the future. The search for a permanent manager is underway, alongside early planning for departures and reinforcements ahead of the 2026 summer transfer window.
Mourinho aims bizarre dig at Carrick
When Carrick retired from professional football in 2018 under Jose Mourinho at United, the former United boss offered him an immediate job on his coaching staff. Carrick has previously waxed lyrical about the faith the Portuguese legend showed in him from the very first minute of his coaching career.
However, with the former Red now at the helm at Old Trafford, Mourinho aimed a subtle but strange dig at big clubs such as United, as well as his former side, Chelsea, for hiring such inexperienced managers during turbulent times.
Just before Carrick’s appointment at United, Chelsea announced that 41-year-old Liam Rosenior had replaced Enzo Maresca as their new head coach.
Following Benfica’s 2-0 defeat to Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday night, Mourinho said: “For me, it is a surprise when coaches with no history and no work done have the opportunity to coach the most important teams in the world; this is the real surprise.
“When Milan takes [Max] Allegri, when Juventus takes [Luciano] Spalletti or when Roma chooses [Gian Piero] Gasperini, these are never surprises.”
Mourinho is throwing stones in a glass house
Now, although Jose Mourinho is obviously one of the most experienced and successful coaches of all time, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t shown the same faith when Chelsea hired him in 2004.
Granted, he had achieved much more success than Carrick or Rosenior when he took the Chelsea job, having won the treble with FC Porto, but at the time of his appointment with the Blues, he was the same age as Rosenior – 41.
Football is also at an age where everyone in the game is getting younger. Managers, such as Brighton’s Fabian Hürzeler, are managing Premier League sides at the age of 32, and players themselves are now making professional debuts much younger than they used to.
Most, if not all, big clubs have scrapped their U23 squads, as a significant number of players are making senior debuts at 17 or 18, with title-contending Arsenal fielding Max Dowman in Premier League and Champions League ties at 15.
Mourinho was shown faith at a young age for a manager, and reaped decades of success from it. He shouldn’t be surprised that the same is now happening with others.
Make sure to follow UtdDistrict on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to never miss out on any of our Manchester United content. Our podcast, What the Devil?, is streamed live every Thursday at 14:00 pm (GMT) on the United View YouTube channel.