Gibson doesn’t want to sack Carrick, that much was evident from the show of support that meant the embattled Middlesbrough boss remained in charge for Friday’s trip to Bristol City, which resulted in a fifth successive defeat. He admires and respects the former England international, regarding him as an ideal figurehead for his football club. He likes Carrick’s honesty and integrity, and clearly feels that his previous successes with Boro prove he is capable of turning things around. As has been the case with most of his previous bosses, he wants to feel he has given Carrick every possible opportunity to succeed.
He is also sinking more than £1m-a-month of his own money into Middlesbrough though, and at the start of the season, shared Carrick’s view that he had assembled the strongest squad of the current head coach’s tenure, a group that was more than capable of winning promotion. Plenty has changed since then, but the key ambition for the season has remained unchanged. So, the equation is a simple one. Is Carrick best placed to guide the current group into the play-offs, and then on into the Premier League? Or would an immediate change of head coach be likelier to spark the kind of revival that is required if Boro are to claw back the seven-point gap currently separating them from the top six?
Last week, Gibson went with the former option. As things stand, there is nothing to suggest his view has changed. Surely, he won’t tolerate failure forever though. Miss out on the play-offs, and Carrick’s position must be untenable.
What does Carrick have to do to start shifting the narrative? Win games of football is the obvious answer, ideally starting with tomorrow’s trip to Stoke City, hardly the easiest of assignments when things are not going well. Boro have won just one of their last eight matches at the bet365 Stadium, with Stoke now managed by Mark Robins, a manager who has appeared to have Carrick’s number ever since he guided his Coventry City side to a play-off semi-final win over Boro in Carrick’s first season in charge. Can the Teessiders do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke? Carrick had better hope so.
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Some clarity of team selection would probably help, with Friday’s defeat at Ashton Gate suggesting Boro’s head coach is still wrestling with the challenge of getting the right blend of players who were performing well under him earlier in the season and January signings who were brought in to improve and freshen the line-up.
Has Morgan Whittaker done enough to suggest he is a better creative bet than an admittedly out-of-sorts Finn Azaz? Kelechi Iheanacho helped set up Tommy Conway’s goal on Friday night, but he is hardly the kind of high-pressing, hard-working forward Carrick perhaps needs to keep opponents on their toes. Might Marcus Forss be a better option? Ryan Giles has hardly hit the ground running since returning to Teesside last month, but if he has shaken off the illness issue that kept him out of the squad at Bristol City, should he be afforded another chance at left-back in an attempt to get Boro onto the front foot?
When Carrick has achieved success as a head coach, his team selection has tended to be both consistent and easy to predict. That is not the case at the moment, perhaps understandably given that so much changed last month. Ultimately, though, it feels like the Boro boss is going to have to go with a preferred line-up and stick with it.
His in-game management is another issue, as highlighted by Friday’s defeat in which Bristol City boss Liam Manning made three game-changing substitutions just after the hour mark while Carrick opted to keep his powder dry while the match slipped away from him. Carrick has defended not making a substitution until the 83rd minute, claiming there were “loads of reasons” why he opted to stick with the players who were beginning to struggle. The problem is that his inactivity wasn’t a one-off, but rather part of a wider pattern that has seen his side collapse in countless games this season because they haven’t been able to turn the tide when opponents have begun to get on top of them.
Does Carrick need some extra, ideally more experienced, support within his coaching group? When Aaron Danks left to join Bayern Munich last summer, he was not directly replaced, with Carrick instead pushing for the appointment of his brother, Graeme, who had been working in Newcastle United’s academy. That means Jonathan Woodgate is now the only experienced coaching voice Carrick is hearing, with some additional input from Grant Leadbitter.
It feels as though Carrick, still in his first senior coaching role, would benefit from a helping hand, but when the suggestion was put to him last week, he shut it down instantly. The Boro hierarchy could, of course, go over his head and appoint someone anyway, but the time for that move has probably passed. In hindsight, though, not recruiting a like-for-like replacement for Danks was almost certainly a mistake.
We are where we are now, though, and that means heading to Stoke desperately trying to avoid a sixth successive setback. Win, lose or draw, Saturday’s home game with Derby County is likely to provide a critical gauge of supporter sentiment. Like Gibson, most Boro fans remain desperate for Carrick to succeed. Like their chairman, however, their patience is unlikely to be infinite.
