Michael Carrick: Between the Lines: My Autobiography

by Michael Carrick

I didn’t have a mobile, so we wrote to each other all the time and I told her how tough it was. I’d always get a little boost when one of her letters would drop through the door. Lisa always sensed what I needed, whether I needed to be left alone, or given a lift.

I’d little to spend my money on anyway, just clothes and Craig David or Usher CDs.

Even to this day Mam will clip me or pull me up if she ever lip-reads me swearing on the pitch.

He’d got so frustrated with some of the lads messing about trying to nutmeg him that he flew into tackles. You’d hear cheers and turn round to see him chasing around in the middle like a madman. That was Wazza. Two minutes later he’d be laughing about it. That aggression and determination helped make him great.

Scholesy was merciless and he’d rap one in at me now and again. He’d fire one at my chest and I’d have to deal with it, there was no margin for error, which I liked as it made sure I was switched on. Giggsy loved giving you the eyes to send you the wrong way, whereas Rio talked his way through it and I swear Ji-sung had three legs and could read your mind. Ji was ridiculous at winning the ball back. Try and give Ji the eyes or even double-bluff him, didn’t matter, he’d still be waiting for that pass with a big smile on his face. While Solskjaer was the silent assassin who’d launch bombs at you and expect you to deal with them.

‘We’re used to winning at Manchester United, you know? The scrutiny is different to what you’re used to. Everyone looks at you differently when you’re at Manchester United and when you’re winning like us and the standards we’ve got. Everyone wants to beat you, everyone wants a piece of you, everyone wants to criticise you, everyone’s after you.’ I still can’t believe, even now, how stupid my reply was to Sir Alex’s emotive portrait of Manchester United. ‘Similar to Chelsea,’ I said. Chelsea had won the title for the last two years and I was just thinking as champions everybody also wanted to beat them. Sir Alex gave me a withering look, ‘No, son. This is Manchester United. We’re different to the rest.’ I thought to myself, ‘Why the hell have I just said that? What does he think of me now? What a start to my United career.’

‘What the fuck was that?’ Carol and Rita shouted at us if we lost or even drew. If I didn’t go up to the kitchen for a couple of days, Carol was on my case. She still is. ‘Where the fuck have you been? Why are you not coming up and eating? Are you trying to avoid us?’ Nobody was safe, academy kid or knight of the realm, when Carol was ranting. She’s probably the only one at United who could get away with giving Sir Alex an earful.

‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to work hard. Nothing stops you from working hard.’ The three things he always mentioned were: ‘Don’t be afraid to work hard. Concentration. Penetration.’

Some of our goal celebrations came from ‘Socom’, and I remember Vida scoring against Inter Milan, dropping down on one knee and pretending to launch a rocket. A few PSPs got smashed up in the heat of battle. None of us liked losing.

‘Today, boys, it’s a running game,’ he’d say. ‘Run more than them, run over the top of them and fucking beat them. They don’t like it. Run forward! Pass forward!’ That would be it, the thrust of the team talk –not tactics but heart and mindset. ‘It’s sheer aggression today,’ Sir Alex would say. We’d storm out there and press them, run, be aggressive, tackle, play forward, run forward, support. The running game didn’t work against Arsenal that day, but it usually did. When the Boss went ‘running game today’, I’d always tell myself, We’re going to win. Physically it’ll be a hard game, but we’ll beat them by running over them. We always had the quality to play with intensity.

But the Boss was waiting for us, raging, ‘Yous lot fucking took your foot off the pedal. That last five minutes was a fucking disgrace. I’m not having that.’ I sat there, stunned, not risking eye contact with him, trying to recall what went wrong, and couldn’t think of anything. Speed went close with a free kick and Abdoulaye Faye headed a corner over but that was it. Seriously, Edwin didn’t have a save to make, yet Sir Alex still tore into us. ‘Whoa, this is different,’ I thought. At West Ham or Spurs, if I came in 2–0 up at half-time, Harry Redknapp or Martin Jol would be clapping and going, ‘Brilliant that!’ Not Sir Alex. He rattled us to keep us going, I felt. We went out in the second half and, OK, didn’t play as well but Ronnie scored, Wazza got his hat-trick and it ended 4–0 – job done. Sir Alex strolled in and just said, ‘Well done. Brilliant.’ I felt like I’d been standing in a storm that blew in out of nowhere, crashed through the dressing-room, shaking us all, and disappeared just as quickly. The Boss gave us each a little pat on the head, and I can almost feel the affectionate touch now. I was leaning forward, taking off my boots, and Sir Alex just tapped me on the head and moved on. He never said much after a win, just a few words. If I hadn’t played very well I’d get a pat on the head, if I played all right I’d get a ‘Well done, son’ and now and again, I’d get, ‘Brilliant’. You can imagine how proud that one word made me feel. Scholesy always got a little sla...

One of the most treasured pictures on my phone is of me, Nev, Giggsy and Rio at the end of that Anfield game in front of our fans and I look at it from time to time.

The strangest three friends in the world were Patrice Evra, Ji-sung Park and Carlos Tévez – they were totally inseparable, playing one touch, two touch in training together every day. God knows how they communicated – one from France, one South Korea, one Argentina – but they just loved being together, and being at United.

It was a brilliant feeling to get abused by so many, very satisfying really.

Defeat shapes you, it drives you.

Even meaningless games like the next day against Al-Jaber’s side, Al-Hilal, at King Fahd Stadium gave me another glimpse into Sir Alex’s greatness, and why this United team were always so competitive. More than 65,000 people turned up to salute Al-Jaber and we should have drawn when we had a penalty in the last minute. Danny Welbeck paused as he ran in and tried to dink it down the middle but he got it wrong and it went over and casualness like that sent the Boss nuts. Welbz was a kid, only 17, but the manager was proper raging with him. I just stared at Sir Alex as he tore into Welbz. There was nothing forced or fake about the Boss’s anger. No one cared about the game. But it was a point of principle for Sir Alex.

Welbz lmaooooo

I wasn’t being negative, it was simply the best option, and my only intention was to pass to Rio, get it back and build again. Once Sir Alex saw that one back pass, something flipped and I heard him going mental on the line, ‘Fucking hell, will you just fucking pass it forward.’

Giggsy and Scholesy always considered Robbo their inspiration. Giggsy told me this story about one of his first games playing left wing. Back then, you got away with all sorts and the full back gave a few verbals to Giggsy like, ‘Go past me and I’ll break your leg.’ So Robbo said to Giggsy, ‘Giggsy, swap positions for 10 minutes. Go and play centre midfield.’ When the full back got the ball, Robbo went flying through and smashed him with a ridiculous tackle. Robbo got up, dusted himself down, took the yellow card and shouted over to Giggsy, ‘You can swap back now.’ Giggsy didn’t hear a thing from the full back for the rest of the game. Robbo went out of his way to protect those young lads, and that’s a tradition passed down at Manchester United.

Sir Alex must be the only manager in history to rest players for a Champions League semi-final.

Our team picked itself really with the main decision being who to put at right back as Rafael was injured, so Fábio, his twin brother, came in. The twins were great lads and the Boss always messed about with them, saying in the early days he was going to sub one for the other at half-time without telling the ref and see if anyone noticed.

Picking the song was my biggest contribution to the tournament apart from the Ecuador game.

I played OK but nothing special, and this is where you sample the extremes. All of a sudden on TV Alan Hansen and Alan Shearer said I played well then everyone jumped on it. ‘Masterclass’, ‘Man of the match’, ‘You can’t leave him out now’, ‘Why has it taken so long for him to play’, etc. It was as though I’d saved the world.

I felt lost and lonely. Looking at the other lads in training I’d think, He’s playing well, he looks happy. I wish I was like him.

I knew I wasn’t right when, on the way to the Slovenia game, on the coach, I was sitting with my headphones on and I nearly started crying. From nowhere. This wave of emotion hit me. I felt like I could just bawl my eyes out there and then. Quickly I had to pull myself together.

I remember standing in the middle of the training pitch at St George’s Park a few months before the 2016 Euros in France and Roy said to us all, ‘I want you to go away this afternoon and think about how we are going to win the Euros, come back later and tell me because I don’t know!’ I appreciated what Roy was trying to achieve but I was a little surprised by what he said.

Occasionally, the sports channels show the Agüero goal and I look away. To this day, I’ve not watched City lift that trophy.

Some of the delayed starts were due to injuries or niggles but more it was because the Boss said, ‘You start playing well when it starts raining.’ I thought Sir Alex was joking, and he was to a point, but there was science to his argument. He believed softer pitches suited me.

Sometimes Lisa will sit and have a glass of wine, while I’ll be eating my Dairy Milk and Galaxy.

At United, the very best players were not only driven but also incredibly original, almost revolutionary, in their thinking. One incident that season particularly stood out for me. Picture the scene: 0–0 just before half-time at Anfield on 23 September 2012, Giggsy gets the ball and runs down the left wing, targeting Martin Kelly, the 22-year-old playing right back for Liverpool. Giggsy turns back, and I’m there, in space, for the pass, it’s made for me, so I scream, ‘Giggsy!’ He turns back again. ‘Giggsy! Yes! Giggsy! Any chance?’ I shout again. He keeps turning, short and sharp, chopping again and again, constantly moving the ball, taking Kelly one way and the other, but not passing. ‘For fuck’s sake, Giggsy!’ Chop, chop, chop, get to the byeline, chop again, and he ends up getting a corner. United fans are going, ‘Fucking cross it.’ The ref blows for half-time after the corner and as we go to the tunnel, I say, ‘Giggsy?!’ He smiles, gives me a little pat on the back and goes, ‘His thighs will be burning. His legs have gone now.’ ‘Fucking hell, so that’s what you’re doing it for.’ Genius! Giggsy never let Kelly settle. He kept him on the move constantly, threatening inside, outside, coming short, going long. For big lads it was tough to keep quickly changing direction. Giggsy was more direct against smaller full backs. He’d hug the touchline and go straight at them. The variety Giggsy had in his game was outrageous. He didn’t just play his own game, doing what he wanted ...

the air if he wanted to, Giggsy tired him out with small movements, jinking away. No one watching the game would know what he was up to. He would get his joy later on. He slotted Michael Owen in for the winner against City at Old Trafford in the sixth minute of stoppage time in September 2009 when Micah should have been there, tracking Owen’s run but he was finished. When I spoke about it with people at United, they mentioned how Solskjaer played right wing against Arsenal at Highbury and tore Ashley Cole to bits. Solskjaer kept moving Ash inside, then outside, taking him out of his comfort zone. Sir Alex always gathered players who thought deeply about the game. We hunted the title again, as we always did under Sir Alex, and one game that really sticks out in my memory was Newcastle on Boxing Day 2012. It was an absolute battle on a bog of a pitch at Old Trafford, it was a real storm and rained non-stop, making it even more of a crazy game. In a way, it was a classic Sir Alex match as we kept fighting, coming from behind three times, I assisted Robin’s equaliser for 3–3, and then we went for Newcastle even more. The seconds were running out when Rio Ferdinand slipped me the ball. I wasn’t as good as Giggs, Scholes or Rooney at winning a game late on but this was a slowmotion, clear-as-day moment for me. That’s what these great players must feel all the time, I thought. I took a little look up and saw Chicharito on the move, and knew this was it – our one chance of victory...

United fans also embraced me fully and 23 February 2013 at Loftus Road is a day I’ll never forget as I became aware of them singing, ‘It’s Carrick, you know; It’s hard to believe it’s not Scholes.’

David was aware that he was surrounded by big characters and experienced winners, and he kept saying, ‘You know better than me.’

@_prakaashk

It didn’t cross my mind at the time, but the other winners were Spurs, who received around £400,000 as a final bonus from United which took my fee with add-ons to £18.6m.

Has anybody ever scored a hat-trick against you?’ ‘No,’ Rio replied. ‘Well, Lukaku did.’ ‘No, actually, Ronaldo did,’ Rio remembered. The Boss knew Rio rarely got bullied. ‘Did you not see him at QPR?!’ Nev asked the Boss. We all fell about laughing as the years rolled away again, and we were back in 2008.

So, get your warm-up. Anybody any comments? This is an interesting thing, how many times did I ever say to you, “Anybody got anything to say?” Not once did anybody have anything to say!’ ‘We were usually asleep!’ Giggsy said. Again the room filled with laughter. ‘An arrow to my heart!’ the Boss smiled.

I knew it was Wayne’s last game at Old Trafford, he’d flown back from holiday in Barbados for it, and it was funny seeing him having a right go at the ref, Neil Swarbrick.

‘You put me to sleep! All day long! No chance I’m staying awake.’ Hospitals and needles get to me. When Louise was born she was breech so we had to have a C-section. They started putting the iodine on Lisa and put the screen up so Lisa couldn’t see anything. I was sat on a stool really low with a screen so I could see what was going on. The next thing I know I’m on the floor. I’d fainted. I came round, lying on my back and just started laughing. The doctor was shaking my legs saying, ‘Are you all right?’ All the doctors and nurses were round me. Lisa was lying there, going, ‘Hello?!’ I can’t do anything about it. It’s weird. I’m not scared, something just goes, boom. Still now, sometimes I’ll get a blood test and I’ll be fine and other times I’ll say to them ‘I have to lie down’ because I go funny. I went to get a blood test once as a kid and they put a needle in my arm and couldn’t get the blood out. They moved the needle around that much the needle came out bent, no exaggeration. The players know about the fainting. Wayne Rooney brings it up all the time. He finds it funny. Any time we’re around the table and someone else has had a baby, Wazza says something to lead the conversation on to my fainting. He’s sitting there giggling, so then I’ve just got to say, ‘Yes, I fainted!’ I don’t mind! I can’t do anything about it. It’s weird.

I received so many kind messages. Even the trolls took a day off!

I was quickly back in the flow, and even had a go at the ref early on because I wasn’t given a free kick. I got told off by Mam for arguing with the ref, ‘You were swearing again, Michael. I saw you swearing.’ I was back.

On the last night everyone ended up in a club covered in Grey Goose vodka and dancing on tables. A fight broke out in the club and the manager wanted to hide Mick in the walk-in fridge for safe keeping!!