Fast forward to January, and if the pressure on Carrick to deliver was sky-high in the summer, then it has become even more intense thanks to the events of the last few weeks. Faced with a season that was hanging in the balance, with a top-two finish looking if not impossible, then extremely unlikely, Steve Gibson, Neil Bausor and Kieran Scott have doubled down in both their support for their current head coach and their willingness to do everything they can to help secure a finish in the play-off places.
A new left-back? Carrick had pushed hard for Ryan Giles in the summer, only for Boro’s recruitment team to conclude that the sums being proposed by both Hull City and the full-back himself didn’t work. When Carrick put Giles’ name forward again at the end of last year, those above him agreed to revisit the situation in January. Last week, Giles returned on an initial loan deal that could well turn into a permanent transfer in the summer.
An upgrade on Isaiah Jones, who was heading to Luton Town amid an acceptance that a change of scenery would be best for all involved? How about Morgan Whittaker, a player who had been the subject of a failed bid from Lazio just 12 months earlier? True, Boro would have to beat off strong competition from Burnley in order to land the 24-year-old, but paying that little bit more would be worth it in order to land one of the Championship’s most highly-rated wingers.
What about holding on to the current squad’s star names? Boro could have sold Emmanuel Latte Lath to Atlanta United on a number of occasions this month – the striker has reservations about moving to the US, but the sums on offer mean he could probably have been persuaded – but opted to stand firm. Admittedly, there is still a chance Latte Lath could leave ahead of next Monday’s transfer deadline if Premier League bids arrive, although the muscular injury he sustained in Saturday’s defeat at Preston has complicated things. If he goes, though, he will be replaced, perhaps through the purchase of David Strelec, perhaps through the acquisition of one of the other attacking targets Scott and the rest of the recruitment operation have been focusing in on in the last few weeks. Either way, the squad will not be left with an unfit Tommy Conway as the only natural number nine.
By the end of the month, the ‘strongest group’ Carrick has ever worked with will have become even stronger. And that’s despite Boro’s latest accounts, which were published earlier this month, revealing the club had suffered an annual loss of £12.4m in the most recent financial period, with Gibson having converted £149m of loans into equity in order to slash overall debt levels. Given that financial backdrop, it would have been easy to understand if the Boro hierarchy had decided to row back this month, cashing in on playing assets rather than shelling out on new ones. Instead, they have continued to roll the dice.
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All of which means Carrick has to deliver. The Boro boss has done okay in his two seasons on Teesside so far – no better, no worse – but there have been significant mitigating factors for the failures to secure promotion.
In his first season, Carrick took over from Chris Wilder in late October, at which point Boro were languishing in 20th position and looking down not up. Making the play-offs was a considerable achievement, even if the no-show in the two legs of the semi-final against Coventry was a big disappointment.
Last season, while there was major investment prior to the start of the campaign, it came late in the window and represented a major overhaul of the squad that had finished fourth in May. A host of key players left at the start of the summer, Carrick had to bed in a lot of new signings at once, many of which were unproven at Championship level, and while performances and results improved as the season went on, ultimately Boro fell short, finishing eighth, four points adrift of the play-off positions.
This term, it would be much harder to come up with excuses if promotion failed to materialise, which is why the spotlight is very much on Carrick with just over three months to go. A lack of consistency has been a massive problem for Boro all season, along with a tendency to fold when difficult questions are asked. Too many games have been carbon copies of Saturday’s defeat at Deepdale, when a promising position was squandered through some lax defending and an inability to stand firm when the opposition began to gain the upper hand.
The defeat at Preston saw Boro drop to sixth, but they remain well-placed with 17 games to go. Admittedly, a top-two finish looks unattainable, but a play-off place is a minimum requirement, and then Carrick needs to prove he has learned lessons from the events of two seasons ago.
From the moment he arrived on Teesside, he has been backed to the hilt. That backing has ratcheted up again this month. Now, the time has arrived for Carrick to justify that backing.
