Tenth in the Championship might not sound like a reason to pop champagne corks but for Middlesbrough it represents proof their plan can prosper.
Evidence, too, that the impressive managerial rookie Michael Carrick is living up to his reputation as English coaching’s one to watch.
Carrick’s apprenticeship at the Riverside is surely one of the Championship’s most interesting subplots. The chaotic nature of the second tier means the narrative shifts almost weekly and if Carrick’s coaching ethos can survive the cut and thrust of the Championship he will surely fulfil the expectations of those who have marked him out for great things in the dugout.
In Saturday’s second-tier game of the day, Middlesbrough make the short trip to the division’s form side Leeds United in a battle of two pre-season promotion favourites. After the midweek mauling of play-off rivals Preston, Carrick’s side could really put down a marker for the rest of the division and confirm the manager’s belief that they have banished the early season doubts that swirled around his team.
It would be another feather in Carrick’s managerial cap too. Having overseen a surge in results that carried Middlesbrough into the play-offs last season his stock was high in the summer. But arguably it is this season – when he has lost many of last season’s big hitters and been presented with raw but talented replacements – that his work has been more impressive.
Bottom of the Championship and winless after seven games, Carrick found the first questions of his coaching career thudding at his doorstep. That he has been able to find solutions with a young team that looks every inch like a work-in-progress is surely proof that he is made of the right stuff. He has confronted second season syndrome head on and seems to be prospering because of it.
Here’s how he’s done it.
Calmness
If there is one trait that everyone who works with Carrick picks out as his calling call it is his calmness.
“It doesn’t mean he’s relaxed or doesn’t care about what’s going on. He cares deeply,” one figure who has worked with Carrick tells i.
“But he’s not a ranter or raver by nature, he’s methodical and believes in what he’s doing. He’s intelligent and focused on finding solutions rather than problems. It just creates this culture where there’s no panic when things go wrong.”
Until this season, it was difficult to put that to the test. Serenity, after all, is simple when results are going your way. But what has really impressed those at Boro is that Carrick’s focus and clear messaging did not go awry when pressure was starting to build.
Considering his apprenticeship at Old Trafford was served under the volatile Jose Mourinho, it is a notable difference from the Portuguese. So too was his attitude during the summer when he lost last season’s two key attacking weapons Cameron Archer, now at Sheffield United after his loan spell expired and he returned to Aston Villa, and Chuba Akpom, sold to Ajax.
Whereas his two predecessors, the more old school Chris Wilder and Neil Warnock, spent summers cajoling the club’s hierarchy to spend money on experience and Championship know-how, Carrick’s message was that if reinforcements did not arrive he would be happy with his lot. He continually referred to the faith he had in the group and how improvement would be coaxed from them on the training ground.
And what’s more he really believed it. Ivorian Emmanuel Latte Lath is 24 and arrived from Atalanta via a successful loan spell at St Gallen – exactly the sort of project signing Middlesbrough are committed to in the Carrick era. There are signs that after a slow start he is starting to come into his own.
Tactical flexibility
Last season Boro’s approach was tailored around Akpom, a player Carrick reinvigorated as a number ten. The equally impressive Ryan Giles was his chief supplier and Boro prospered.
This year they have had to change things, finding a new formula that sticks to many of Carrick’s principles – control, working the ball through the lines and tactical fluidity – but is at times practical too.
There were eyebrows raised in midweek when Preston manager Ryan Lowe voiced his disappointment that his team had been beaten 4-0 by a side who are not the “formidable force” they were in 2022-23 but he had a point. Middlesbrough don’t have the attacking assets they did but are finding a way. Kudos to Carrick, surely?
Perhaps their biggest result of the season so far is a home win at Championship front runners Leicester where Middlesbrough changed the gameplan entirely, becoming a counter-attacking side whose defensive structure was faultless. They enjoyed just 33 per cent possession – virtually unheard of under Carrick at the Riverside – but won with a Sam Greenwood free-kick. It was a statement win.
The right structure
Carrick does not care about titles but he is officially ‘Head Coach’ and it is on the training pitches where he stands out. Those who’ve worked with Carrick call his sessions “fresh, innovative and players love them”.
His messaging is “concise” but packed with detail. His work ethic is excellent but his style is collaborative. “People are trusted,” the insider says.
The secret to turning things around has been fairly simple: hard work on the training ground has improved players.
Carrick works with a director of football, Kieran Scott, and owner Steve Gibson who are targeting Middlesbrough to become a sustainable, stable Premier League club. They are buying young and investing in potential, trusting in a progressive head coach to deliver dividends. The structure appears sound.
Backed by the board
There is, perhaps, a message here for jittery boards during downturns in form. Carrick was never under threat when results flatlined.
“We’re calm,” came the message from the top on Teesside. Faith in Carrick was never shaken and there was – in the words of one insider – “alignment” from top to bottom at Middlesbrough. It is a word Pep Guardiola pointedly referenced when asked about the difference between Manchester City and Carrick’s former side Manchester United after the recent derby win at Old Trafford.
Carrick is from a generation of potential managers who have been counselled by their peers to think carefully about the clubs they join for fear of ending up feeling like what they have bought is “not what was on the brochure”.
At the Riverside, he has an owner in Steve Gibson who is challenging but supportive. Gibson, in turn, respects Carrick for not doing what Wilder did during lean periods and shifting blame upwards.
Here’s Scott a fortnight ago: “Making a change was never in our thoughts, Michael and his staff have all bought into the idea of developing players,” he said.
“We’re all part of the plan and we’re all going to live it together.”
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